Mary Wiggins, a single mother in Idaho wanted to watch the president address Congress on healthcare last night. The issue matters to her. She lost her insurance when she lost her job and has been unable to take her two-year-old son to the doctor. However, like millions of Americans, Wiggins also thinks she can dance. While ABC, CBS, and NBC preempted their programing to carry President Obama's address, Fox instead ran the premiere of So You Think You Can Dance, forcing Wiggins to make a terrible choice.
"We didn't want it to come to this," a Fox spokesperson explained in a prepared statement. "We were hoping the president would compromise, but for all his talk of bipartisanship, he showed no willingness to move his speech to a more convenient time slot, such as Saturday when Cops is scheduled, or next Tuesday during More to Love." The spokesperson added, "We remain committed to entertain both those who think they can dance, and the estimated fifty-million Americans who cannot dance at all."
The White House's refusal to reschedule the address outraged many dance fans, including South Carolina congressman and former community theatre jazz dancer, Joe Wilson, who was so upset over missing the premiere that he actually shouted at the president during the speech. He has since apologized. "I let my emotions get the best of me," he explains, adding "In retrospect, I probably could have tivoed the show."
As for Mary Wiggins, she settled on an unsatisfactory compromise, frequently flipping back and forth between the two programs. "I think I got the gist of the president's plan, but some of Nigel [Lythgoe]'s critiques went way over my head." She hopes that she will never find herself in such a situation again, saying "No one should ever have to choose between health care and dance."
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