Remember James Danforth Quayle, Vice President to the better Bush? Quayle was a rarity amongst modern Vice Presidents, being one of the few you could never seriously envisage as President. Indeed the only other Vice Presidents from the last fifty years who have never been nominated for the Presidency were one who was forced to resign due to charges of tax evasion and money laundering and the incumbent. Quayle's own bid for the Republican nomination in 1999/2000 went absolutely nowhere and got about as much public attention.
But there's one incident above all others for which Quayle will be remembered. He once attended a spelling bee and tried to correct the spelling of "P-O-T-A-T-O" to "P-O-T-A-T-O-E". Never has anyone generated so much concern for a US President's health!So other than a brief shadowy appearance in a Presidential election what has Quayle been up to for the past thirteen years? And does anyone know if he's learnt to spell yet?
1 comment:
The potato joke is a good one, but the story I most often remeber about J Danforth Quayle is when he was asked, by a television interviewer in advance of a visit to various Latin American countries (amongst which Brasil) if he knew which languages were spoken there. He responded ... you guessed it? .... Latin. By copmparison even the present president is a clever man.
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