You remember Dan Quayle, right? As forty-fourth Vice President of the United States, from 1989 to 1993, Dan Quayle provided the Nation and the World with hours of entertainment through his gaffes, misstatements and blunders.
In fact, it could be argued that V.P. Quayle provided Americans with more laughs during his Vice-Presidency than the entire cast of Saturday Night Live during the same timeframe. In their defense, it should be noted that Quayle labored only under the burden of having no formal, comedic training, while the SNL cast of the time had to deal with a dearth of comedic talent.
Who could ever forget such Quayle-gems as:
“We don't want to go back to tomorrow, we want to go forward.”
“The future will be better tomorrow.”
“For NASA, space is still a high priority.”
“I love California. I practically grew up in Phoenix.”
And, my personal favorite, in a speech to the United Negro College Fund, whose slogan is “A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste”, where Mr. Quayle assailed the audience with:
“You take the United Negro College Fund model that what a waste it is to lose one's mind or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.”
Quayle’s personal-best came in response to a question regarding sending men to Mars. At the time, Quayle was serving as chairman of the National Space Council:
“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”
His most famous routine … sorry, misstep, came in 1992 when Quayle was asked to read the words for an elementary school spelling bee. The word was “potato” … which the student spelled correctly. At which point, Quayle corrected him for having missed the “e”. Potatoe. In Quayle’s defense, that’s how it was written on the card and he’d had a long week.
A decade and a half later, enter Barack Obama.
Despite the media’s cooing over his intelligence and eloquence, Obama seems to suffer from the same disease as Dan Quayle. A reasonably gifted orator when working from a set speech, he seems to be even more gifted as a contortionist – managing to make his way through the day while never letting a foot get too far from his mouth.
In just the few short months that he’s been running for President …
Okay, so he’s actually been running since kindergarten, but, unlike Hillary Clinton, I don’t see anything wrong with that. I actually think it’s okay for little boys and girls to aspire to one day be President of the United States.
Regardless, in just the few short months that he’s acknowledged being in the running for President, Barack Obama’s managed to score an impressive number of gaffes of his own:
“In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died — an entire town destroyed.” – actual number of dead people: 12
“Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go.” – actual number of States in the United States: 50
Regarding trailing Hillary Clinton in Kentucky pre-primary polls: “Sen. Clinton, I think, is much better known, coming from a nearby state of Arkansas. So it’s not surprising that she would have an advantage in some of those states in the middle.” – actual state closer to Kentucky: Illinois (where Obama’s from)
“There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Ala., because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born.” – actual year of Barack Obama’s birth: 1961; actual year of the Bloody Sunday march in Selma, AL: 1965
Regarding the lack of translators for the military in Afghanistan: “We only have a certain number of them, and if they are all in Iraq, then it’s harder for us to use them in Afghanistan” – actual languages spoken in Iraq: Arabic or Kurdish; actual languages spoken in Afghanistan: Pashto or Farsi
“On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes — and I see many of them in the audience here today — our sense of patriotism is particularly strong.” – actual number of dead people in the audience: 0 (okay, so maybe only Obama can see the dead people – which would explain the extra 9,988 dead people he saw after the Kansas tornadoes)
“Since the Bush Administration launched a misguided war in Iraq, its policy in the Americas has been negligent toward our friends, ineffective with our adversaries, disinterested in the challenges that matter in peoples' lives, and incapable of advancing our interests in the region. … No wonder, then, that demagogues like Hugo Chavez have stepped into this vacuum.” – actual year Hugo Chavez took power in Venezuela: 1998; actual President of the United States at that time: Bill Clinton
Regarding the anti-Clinton YouTube ad modeled after Apple’s 1984 Macintosh ad: “We don't have the technical capacity to create something like that.” – actual high-tech gear necessary: computer (preferably a Mac)
The list goes on, and the media does report these gaffes, but in a good-natured way, and, at the same time, still praising Obama as an intellectual giant qualified to be President of the United States. These same sorts of misstatements caused the media to portray Dan Quayle as being such an idiot as to make President George H. W. Bush “impeachment-proof”.
Now it’s reported that Dan Quayle respects Obama … could a possible endorsement be in the offing?
More importantly, could there be a Master Plan afoot?
Dan Quayle is not an idiot, despite his media portrayal. He’s actually quite intelligent, but with an inability to speak off-the-cuff with any degree of sanity. Having served one term as Vice President and never having gotten the chance to run for the Big One on his own merits, could Mr. Quayle have come up with a diabolical plot?
Think about it: Obama was virtually unheard of on the national scene until a few years ago. A State Senator, quickly elected to the United States Senate, and after serving only four years in the Senate is now the Democratic Party Nominee for President of the United States. An unlikely turn of events, but …
What if a seasoned, political mastermind like Dan Quayle, recognizing the impossibility of overcoming his reputation forged in the ‘90s, created for himself an alter-ego. An alter-ego so diametrically opposed politically from his known positions that no one would ever suspect a connection. An alter-ego not only of a different political party, but of an entirely different race.
And yet, an alter-ego possessed of the same fatal flaw that so doomed his original career.
Think of it. Is it possible? Picture it:
January 20, 2009 – Inauguration Day. The forty-fourth President of the United States is sworn in, raises a towel to his brow and strips away the make up to reveal …
President Quayle
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