The references to Big Bird and PBS went over my head during the first presidential debate the other night. (I was too busy playing Tiny Tower—now at the 65th floor—at the time.) But, apparently, Mitt Romney has a real hard on fetish for Big Bird on the campaign trail. I’m shocked—shocked!—that Romney is a Big Bird stalker, professing his love and threatening to do harm in the same breath to America’s favorite fowl. I wouldn’t be surprised if Romney gets busted for possessing Evil Bert porn.

Big Bird, Sesame Street and PBS has always been a favorite target for the Republican Party since the multicultural wars of the 1960’s, where the old white men of history and literature were threatened by the emerging voices of emancipated slaves, liberated women and other minorities in the American melting pot.

Even if the public subsidy for PBS was completely eliminated, it would only amount to 1/100th of one percent of the federal budget. A number so small in a $3 trillion USD budget that it’s not even big enough to be a rounding error.

Big Bird’s real contribution to the American economy is $46.9 million USD and 1,320 jobs. That’s right. Big Bird is a job creator that Republicans loved to talk about. Unfortunately, I don’t think the Republicans will stop looking down their lily-white noses to acknowledge that politically inconvenient fact.