AH Challange: "You sir, are like Jack Kennedy."

Penelope

Banned
The grounds that you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Quayle had a life time. He was given offices to prove himself in, which he did not, and given opportunities to shine, and he did not.

Honestly, I'm thinking of changing the POD to around 1965, so that Dan Quayle could possibly serve in Vietnam, as MerryPrankster suggested. That could completely change his political philosphy.
 
During the Russian Civil War, one of the Reds' generals used to be a steel worker. Circumstances often forge people into more than people thought they could be.

That's not such a good example, MP.

Lincoln the rail splitter, the man without much formal education whose entire 'higher' learning was based on scripture and his readings for entrance to the bar, he would be an American equivalent of this Russian who rose from humble beginnings to greatness.

Quayle was born into privilege.

(Though looking at the short youtube clip of him versus Bentsen, I don't quite see why I'm expected to believe Dan Quayle was obviously such a boob. Yet Peggy Noonan reminded us of the private conventional wisdom from the GOP elite as to why Quayle was considered not-quite-good-enough when she explained to us why Palin was not-quite-good-enough last year: "Early this morning I saw Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, and as we chatted about the McCain campaign (she thoughtfully and supportively) I looked into her eyes and thought, Why not her? Had she been vetted for the vice presidency, and how did it come about that it was the less experienced Mrs. Palin who was chosen? I didn't ask these questions or mention them, I just thought them. Later in the morning, still pondering this, I thought of something that had happened exactly 20 years before. It was just after the 1988 Republican convention ended. I was on the plane, as a speechwriter, that took Republican presidential nominee George H.W. Bush, and the new vice presidential nominee, Dan Quayle, from New Orleans, the site of the convention, to Indiana. Sitting next to Mr. Quayle was the other senator from that state, Richard Lugar. As we chatted, I thought, "Why him and not him?" Why Mr. Quayle as the choice, and not the more experienced Mr. Lugar?")
 
(Though looking at the short youtube clip of him versus Bentsen, I don't quite see why I'm expected to believe Dan Quayle was obviously such a boob.

The boob thing doesn't come from just the one debate but from the vast mass of idiotic statements the man made over the years. And make no mistake, the things he said were ridiculous. Waaay past Yogi Berra-isms.
 
The boob thing doesn't come from just the one debate but from the vast mass of idiotic statements the man made over the years. And make no mistake, the things he said were ridiculous. Waaay past Yogi Berra-isms.

Those Quaylisms are almost apocryphal, and I imagine only a few of them can be verified (like the 'potatoe' gaffe.)

I'm not going to sit through the entire youtube of his '88 debate, but if I did I'm sure I'd come away thinking he was a much better communicator than Sarah Palin is in that format.

However, the Noonan article is a good indication that the professionals in the business always thought Quayle was in over his head, and it's hard to argue with that.

Good primary source for the historians, and all...
 
Those Quaylisms are almost apocryphal, and I imagine only a few of them can be verified (like the 'potatoe' gaffe.)

I'm not going to sit through the entire youtube of his '88 debate, but if I did I'm sure I'd come away thinking he was a much better communicator than Sarah Palin is in that format.

However, the Noonan article is a good indication that the professionals in the business always thought Quayle was in over his head, and it's hard to argue with that.

Good primary source for the historians, and all...

The one I was thinking of in particular was a much longer quote from one of my space history books...
Dan Qualye said:
Mars is essentially in the same orbit [as Earth]...Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures there where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If there is oxygen, that means we can breathe.
(emphasis added)
This from a man who was the head of the National Space Council!

(If you don't know all that much about Mars, it's a bit like saying Alexander the Great conquered Russia at the head of a German army with Napoleon Bonaparte by his side. Just totally, totally wrong)
 
The one I was thinking of in particular was a much longer quote from one of my space history books...

Originally Posted by Dan Qualye
Mars is essentially in the same orbit [as Earth]...Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures there where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If there is oxygen, that means we can breathe.

(emphasis added)
This from a man who was the head of the National Space Council!

(If you don't know all that much about Mars, it's a bit like saying Alexander the Great conquered Russia at the head of a German army with Napoleon Bonaparte by his side. Just totally, totally wrong)

He was getting his information from Percival Lowell, was he?

Hmmm, I know Quayle was aligned with the Religious Right... Maybe he was being creative with his understanding of 'inteligent design' (or whatever it was called back then).
 
No doubt Quayle said some pretty dumb things, e.g. potatoe, what a terrible thing to lose one's mind, but we shouldn't think of him as a total fool. He did have enough brains to pass the bar exam, when many do not; and he did defeat Birch Bayh for the senate seat. [never mind that 1980 was a republican year] Retards don't get elected to the US Senate. Having said that, I remember watching the 1988 debate. After Bentsen's remark, when Quayle was just standing there, looking really pissed off, my wife said that he looked like he was about to cry. I remarked that if he did that, Bush might as well forget any chance of winning. But in the end it didn't matter. Because Dukakis the bleeding heart let Willie Horton out of jail. And Willie went out and raped a white woman. So he became like middle America's worst nightmare, and middle America wanted nothing to do with Dukakis.
In the 1992 debate, Quayle did at least as well as Gore [which isn't saying much, I know] while poor Stockdale looked completely outclassed.
 
Btw, the "potatoe" thing was to avoid embarassing the elementary school. He was moderating an elementary school spelling bee, and the card he was reading off of said that potato was spelled with an potatoe. So when the kid spelled the word correctly, he "corrected" him by reading what was written on the card. Blaming him for that is like blaming Obama for flubbing the oath at the inauguration. All he did was repeat someone else's mistake.
 
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