Robin Thomas responds to Dan Quayle

And? So? What about the father-the man who left Murphy to raise her child alone and suffer censure? Well, life hasn’t exactly been simple for Robin Thomas, either. He’s the actor who played gonzo activist Jake Lowenstein, Murphy’s ex, who showed up 20 years after their five-day marriage, vied with another man for Murphy’s affection, impregnated her, and later headed off to the Amazon.

After Quayle attacked Murphy for undermining family values, Thomas faxed the Vice President a note saying, ”I couldn’t agree with you more!” He added that Jake was ”ready, willing, and able” to come back and be a good husband. Unfortunately, Quayle’s office apparently misconstrued the tongue-in-cheek document as a sign of support for Quayle’s comments. And it was reported as such in The Washington Post.

”They didn’t get it,” Thomas told Entertainment Weekly. ”The bottom line is, my character’s being in South America had no bearing on the L.A. riots. For him to equate the riots with the breakdown in family values is way off the mark. It’s a symptom, not a cause. And those of us in the real world realize this.”

The brouhaha has raised the question of whether the TV show’s absentee father will again return. (The producers aren’t talking.) ”Maybe (Murphy and the baby) will show up on my door in the Amazon,” Thomas says, ”or maybe I can baby-sit if I have to come back to Washington.” And there is the still- unsettled question of child support. ”What would she need it for?” Thomas says in defense of his character. ”She’s gotta make more than Jake.”