I know why Romney hates Big Bird.
In case anyone is curious. It is the same reason Dobson hated on SpongeBob Squarepants, back in the day:
Zero Tolerance
That piece was about the right-wing attack on SpongeBob Squarepants over his appearance in a video called "We Are Family" which Dobson thought was promoting homosexuality. Here's the chunk that explains Mitt's attack on Big Bird:
It's precisely because they recognize <television's> power that the right wants to control what comes out of the box. And for the past 35 years, with Sesame Street leading the way, the dominant ethos in children's educational programming (as distinct from, you know, the crap that corporations produce just to sell toys with) has been that children's TV should teach them to cooperate with, respect, and learn from cultures and people who are different from them. And that has had an enormous impact.
I was born the same year Sesame Street premiered. Sesame Street taught me to read. It also introduced me to a universe very unlike the suburban neighborhood in which I was growing up. It was set in an urban neighborhood tenanted by a multiracial cast in which working-class families were well represented. It introduced me to a whole range of brightly colored creatures who expanded my idea of the boundaries of the possible, and to a zany sense of humor that taught us to expect the unexpected and greet it with shrieks of delight. I was enthralled by it, and the effects were lasting and permanent.
Once, when I couldn't have been more than 7, I visited a friend of my mother's and was flabbergasted when she told me that she thought Sesame Street was "just awful." I asked her why. She said, "It's teaching children Spanish!" I still didn't get it. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with learning Spanish. Weren't we supposed to like learning things? Wasn't that what school was for?
Now, of course, I realize what that woman's problem was. And, in her own way, she was right: Sesame Street didn't make me a Spanish speaker, but it did teach me enough Spanish so that I now recognize a number of words and I could still count to 20 in Spanish if you gave me enough time and a few do-overs. Spanish doesn't now seem to me like a completely foreign language. It's more familiar, and therefore less frightening, and when I hear people speaking Spanish, I don't think of them as aliens from a hostile planet. And the ideological descendants of this woman, 35 years later, want to make damn sure that no PBS program gets a chance to do for gay people what Sesame Street did for African-Americans, Latinos, the disabled, Native Americans, and all the other cultures and identities that were represented on that show.
This battle matters, people. No matter how stupid it looks. ... This is about whether the voters of the next generation will believe that tolerance is a virtue to be encouraged or a vice to be avoided.
It's the message of tolerance--yea, even celebration--of diversity that the right-wing hates. That's what Big Bird is a symbol of for them, and that's why Mitt took a shot at him; it was disguised as a fiscal responsibility point but really it's a dog whistle for the rabid fundamentalist base. Unfortunately the dog whistle turned out to be audible to other people as well.
The Plaid Adder
= new reply since forum marked as read
GREAT OP!!
I love deep psychological/social/political analysis.
And welcome to DU
(Welcome people and lord you will build them too)
Get offa my brain waves! 
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1481760
^5!
(for the record my conure loves to do this... I will need to take a photo of that cutey doing that)
2 settings that showcased "suburb" and "small town", were apparently incensed at the "urban" that was Sesame Street.
I started 1st grade in 1967 and during that time, was transitioned from the "Dick and Jane" book world to the urban-focused "Bank Street Readers", something that reflected MY reality
and not someone else's.
And at some point in early 1970, my teacher announced that our classmate, Matt Robinson, Jr., would be leaving to move up to New York City with the rest of his family, to join his father who was playing a character named "Gordon" in a new show that was running on our local channel 12 (WHYY) called "Sesame Street".
And the rest is history.
For ANY rethug to torpedo something that reflects the reality of some 50% of the U.S. population that lives in cities and large towns nationwide, it underscores the biggest disgrace that they can heap on this nation as one that values "freedom" and "family values", and not the bullshit that they call these tenets of a society.
So what are Teletubbies?
well said, OP!
I'm old enough to remember when The Learning Channel started and what it once was... Who chooses programming like Toddlers & Tiaras...... 
Oh, and don't get me started on the History Channel, Discovery Channel etc...
From Wikipedia: "The Learning Channel: “a place for learning minds” was founded in 1972 by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and NASA as an informative/instructional network focused on providing real education through the medium of TV; it was distributed at no cost by NASA satellite.
It was privatized in 1980"
PBS is needed now, more than ever! 
