Dan Quayle

"UH-OH, Spaghetti-o's!"

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James Danforth "Potatoe" "No Jack Kennedy" "Wet Head"^[3]:13 Quayle (1947–) was the Vice President of the United States during the George H. W. Bush Presidency. Bush chose Quayle as his running mate to pander to the far-right wing of the GOP, including his Bircherite ancestry: his parents were proud John Birch Society members.^{[4]:231[note 1]} He is also a professional dumbass and the late-20^th century's greatest gift to the art of satire. (He may have also been a Time Lord.) Quayle's political stature was immortalised in the first edition of Sid Meier's Civilization as the benchmark for the poorest performance in the game (and continues to serve as such in the latest editions). He is a serious contender for "worst Vice President ever." Keep in mind that the list of Vice Presidents includes a Sith Lord, someone who wanted to conquer the “hollow Earth” and took a nine-month leave during a crisis, a man so corrupt even Nixon wanted no piece of him, freakin' Aaron Burr, and three guys who engaged in active treason.

The chief reason for his inclusion on RationalWiki is that despite his near-heroic level of dumbassery, given the choice, many people would have given anything to have him back as Vice President over George W. Bush's VP, Dick Cheney, as stupid is better than evil, although some claim there isn't really a difference. Many were convinced that if John McCain had won the Presidency in 2008, America would have basically had Dan Quayle on estrogen as the VP. He made an amazingly pitiful run for the presidency in 2000, though the eventual GOP nominee, George W., was little better in hindsight.

Achievements[edit]

Word salad Quotes[edit]

Why do GOP Vice Presidents come in only two varieties: evil incarnate, or dumb as a post? It cannot be to balance the ticket.

• What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.- Speaking before the United Negro College Fund, 9 May 1989
• The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history. No, not in this nation, but in World War II. I mean we all lived in this century. I didn't live in this century, but in this century's history.- 15 September 1988
• Hawaii has always been a very pivotal role in the Pacific. It is in the Pacific. It is a part of the United States that is an island that is right here.- 25 April 1989
• Mars is essentially in the same orbit... Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe.- 11 August 1989
• Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.- 30 October 1988
• Don't forget about the importance of the family. It begins with the family. We're not going to redefine the family. Everybody knows the definition of the family. [pause] A child. [pause] A mother. [pause] A father. There are other arrangements of the family, but that is a family and family values.- Speaking to Hispanic Job Corps students in Amarillo, Texas.^[5]
• Republicans understand the importance of bondage between the mother and child.- October 1988^[6]
• Potato. P-O-T-A-T-O-E.- 15 June 1992, at a spelling bee^[7]
• "The real question for 1988 is whether we're going to go forward to tomorrow or pas to the - to the back."^[2]:257
• "We're going to have the best educated American people in the world."^[2]:257
• "This election is about who's going to be the next President of the United States."^[2]:257
• "I believe we are on an irreversible trend towards more freedom and democracy - but that could change."^[3]:41

Though as with all broken clocks...[edit]

• Mike, you have no flexibility on this. None. Zero. Forget it. Put it away... I do know the position you're in. I also know what the law is. You listen to the parliamentarian. That's all you do. You have no power.- January 2021 to Mike Pence^[8]

Danny And 'Nam[edit]

One of the most famous controversies regarding Quayle is the fact that he didn't serve in the Vietnam War despite being perfectly eligible to have done so. Of course, the massive overall difference in social class between those who planned the war and those who fought it was long known by the time Quayle ran for Vice President, and in Quayle's case it is believed that he used connections his father had made to join the National Guard as opposed to fighting in Vietnam, a conflict he was fully in support of at the time.^[10]

When asked about this, George Bush defended Quayle by saying "He did not go to Canada, he did not burn his draft card and he damn sure didn't burn the American flag!"^[3]:24

Murphy Brown[edit]

One of Quayle's most infamous speeches occurred on May 19, 1992, where he talked about the "poverty of values" in the United States^{[note 2]} with a specific target being the television situation comedy series Murphy Brown. After talking about the lack of morality in the United States, Quayle declared:

It doesn’t help matters when primetime TV has Murphy Brown, a character who supposedly epitomizes today’s intelligent, highly paid professional woman, mocking the importance of fathers by bearing a child alone and calling it just another lifestyle choice.^[11]

Funnily enough, Candice Bergen, who played Murphy Brown, found herself agreeing with Quayle, later saying, "I never have really said much about the whole episode, which was endless, but his speech was a perfectly intelligent speech about fathers not being dispensable and nobody agreed with that more than I did."^[12] However, this goes to show the major issue with what Quayle said: almost nobody believed that Murphy Brown, or any other television character, was supposed to be a role model personality they should aspire to be like. Even watching the first episode, where Brown is revealed to have just gotten out of rehab for alcoholism, should suffice to prove that. This doesn't even get into how, in the story of the show, Brown was considered intelligent during her time as a single mother because the man who knocked her up ran out on her due to his unwillingness to give up the childfree life—what would Quayle have preferred she do, get an abortion?

Other moments of note[edit]

While Vice President, Quayle:

• Condemned the GOP National Committee for censuring David Duke.^[3]:38 Quayle later said on Duke's campaign "Unfortunately, the people of Louisiana are not racists."^[3]:46
• Said The Satanic Verses was "obviously not only offensive but, I think, most of us would say, in bad taste" despite not having read it.^[3]:39
• Golfed at an all white country club in Pebble Beach, one which decided it would sooner drop out of the PGA Tour than allow minorities to join. He later apologized for doing this, but made it clear he was fine playing at golf courses in D.C. which don't allow women to play.^[3]:47
• When an exhibit of him was created at a public library in Indiana, the items on display included a "coffee cup he once drank from, chair he once stood one, official airsickness bag from '88 GOP convention, swatch of carpeting former housekeeper saved from one of his floors, poem he wrote at 13."^[3]:49
• Led Bush's "Council on Competitiveness" which had no goal other than to push for deregulation and make it harder for the regulatory agencies to do their jobs.^[3]:62-63

See also[edit]

• Bushisms
• Chickenhawk
• Dan Quayle: The Wilderness Years^{[note 3]}
• Joe Biden: The cuddlier version.
• Spiro Agnew: The much pricklier version.

Notes[edit]

References[edit]