The first issue of the campus newspaper just came out, and it seems that they’re using jokes and factoids as filler material. Two of the fillers, in fact, are the quote “It’s not pollution that’s hurting the environment, it’s all the impurities in the air and water”, attributed to Al Gore, and the factoid “The plane that Buddy holly died on was called the American Pie, hence the name of the song”. I’m going to write to the editiors to complain about this, of course, and I want facts to back me up. I can handle the American Pie one OK (I believe that Cecil covered it), but I’d like a little help with the pollution one. According to Snopes, the quote was uttered not by Gore, but by Dan Quayle, as I had suspected. However, Snopes doesn’t give any further details. Does anyone know on what date Danforth uttered this, and on what occasion?
Who sticks up for Dan Quayle.
If and when you locate the source of this quote, be sure that it is accurate and in context.
Newspapers are not reliable sources for material of this sort. Since the signal went out that Quayle was a legitimate target, all the rules of fairness and accurate reporting were dropped.
An example is Quayle’s statement while campaigning in California. He said “It’s great to be back in California. As you know, I grew up in Phoenix, so we used to visit across the border all the time.”
The media dropped everything after “…I grew up in Phoenix” and tried to pretend he didn’t know where Phoenix was.
I suspect a lot of these “quotes” were around before anyone heard of Quayle.
I suspect many people who write stuff don’t care that much for accuracy in the first place and do not care to get corrections.
A few days ago I wrote a note to a web site pointing out a mistake and a couple days later I got an email calling me stupid and pretty much saying who cares for accuracy. Oh well, I was just trying to be helpful.
The slam job many reporters did on Qualye was disgusting, and now some people are trying to do the same thing to Gore, with the same quotes. Perhaps what’s most insulting is that they don’t believe people have a long enough memory to remember these quotes from the first time around. Maybe it’s something about the office of Vice President, but I just think there’s a lot of unscrupulous jerks out there who don’t care about portraying candidates accurately.
Though I agree that Dan Quayle was unfairly made a target of ridicule, I don’t blame journalists. When serious journalists wrote about Quayle (even liberal journalists), I’d have to say they generally treated him fairly and respectfully.
No, if people think QUayle was an idiot, don’t blame the NY Times or the Washington Post- blame Leno, Letterman and Carson. THEY’RE the ones who publicized every little misstep, and THEY’RE the ones who dusted off every moldy Polish joke and inserted “Quayle” for “these two Polacks in a bar.”
Oh, for heaven’s sake.
No, it wasn’t the nasty liberal media; no, it wasn’t Leno and Letterman. Quayle really IS an idiot.
rs0522, you are not alone.
Example of media and pundit inconsistency. In 1988, Quayle was a young Senator, 40ish, and didn’t serve in Vietnam, instead choosing to serve in the National Guard… what was the response? “Oh, we can’t have someone that young and inexperienced a heartbeat away from the Presidency… where’s his foreign policy experience? He didn’t serve… he only went to the National Guard”.
4 years later, Bill Clinton, young governor from a small southern state, 40ish… didn’t serve at in anything during vietnam except Protests. Response? “We need fresh young blood… out with the old… youthful, invigorating, pass the torch to the new generation, refreshing, who cares about Vietnam?..”
Did I miss something?
Chronos, I’m willing to bet that the quote wasn’t said by either Quayle or Gore.
OK, so if it wasn’t originally Quayle who said it (contrary to Snopes), can anyone tell me who it was? My point here isn’t to try to attack Quayle, but to defend Gore (never mind for the moment the question of whether either is worthy of attack or defense).
I suspect, personally, that the way they got attributed to Gore is that one of the e-mails going around just attributed them to “the Vice President”, and the e-mail outlasted the Bush administration.
I’ve heard it attributed to Quayle. Try looking for a site on Quayle that sticks up for him and maybe they debunk it. Then do the same for Gore, you can at least use process of eliminatioin.
Apparently so. Let me explain it to you.
On the one hand, you have J. Danforth Quayle, whose very name starts people snickering. Face it, even if he never said any of the goofy things attributed to him, Quayle is just one of those unfortunates that people like to laugh at, whether he deserves it or not. Like the kid in the fourth grade that everybody picked on, but didn’t know why, Quayle is just a magnet for humiliation. Combine that with all the documented, verified inanities that he did utter, and you have a recipe for media abuse.
On the other hand you have Bill Clinton. No matter what he does, he comes out smelling like a rose. Talk about your teflon presidency; he makes Ronnie Reagan look like Velcro. From Jennifer to Paula to Monica, no matter how many times he puts his foot in it, he never pays the ultimate price. Why? Because people like him. Rush Limbaugh brownshirts aside, by and large, most acknowledge his shortcomings and forgive him, because he’s just so darned charismatic. He laughs & smiles a lot; hey, he plays a saxaphone! His detractors just whine, “butbutbut, that’s not fair!” Well, since when is life fair? Face it, some people have it, and some people don’t.
Bill’s got it. Dan doesn’t. Deal with it.
No, I couldn’t find the full text of this speech, but I agree with Ike, this guy is an idiot. Yes, it is possible to take a statement out of context, but there are far too many to explain away.
Esquire, I may not be so trusting of, but Reuters, The NY Times, and The New Yorker? And if you can’t find actual evidence to indicate that these are taken out of context, how about your best explanation of how they might have been.
To the OP: Chronos, I found your quote attributed to Quayle on several sites, but none of them citied the origin. Snopes confirms it too, along with the ones I have above, and others.
Dan Quale got a bad deal from the media, plain and simple. Who says so?
Al Gore, that’s who…on Dave Letterman
I figure ALL politicians say LOTS of things everyday…some smart, some stupid…some good, some bad.
The media decides which to emphasize. Case in point, George W.s recent gaffe that was nearly the only thing talked about by the media yesterday. What else did the guy say that day?
So If I understand this correctly, it is OK then to sexually harass someone as long as you are charismatic?
If Clarence Thomas played the sax on Arsenio Hall, then his confirmation would have been a breeze.
Hitler was charasmatic as well and I don’t see anyone defending him or saying “Hey, he had it, Stalin didn’t”
You’re still missing the point. No, it’s not OK for people who don’t have it; there will be consequences. No, it is not OK for people that do have it, but there just won’t be any consequences. It’s not my opinion; it is just the way society works. Like I said, life is not fair. As for the rest of your remarks, are you disputing the fact that there is a double standard for likeable people? Clarence Thomas didn’t have it, so the sax wouldn’t have helped him anyway. Hitler’s appeal was regional, at best; he didn’t play well around the world. Look at the consequences.
If you do a web search for “quayle quotes”, you get lots and lots of hits, because there’s lots and lots of sites with lists of his blunders. Some give references to when he actually said the specific stupid thing.
For the quote in the OP, most that have it just credit it to Quayle without a date. However, this site says it was found in the LA Times on 21 May 1989. It doesn’t say where he was, so you may have to do a bit of research on that.
Sigh, this is harder than I thought. One answer to my original question, and that reply cites The Mother of All Humor Archives as a source.
This would probably be a lot easier if Quayle quotes weren’t so damn funny… Maybe then, there’d be some sources relating them with a straight face.
Well, it’s back to the search engines for me!
Well, just about every site with Quayle quotes is citing them for humorous purposes. Most have the exact same set of quotes, which is not too surprising. Obviously, the file has circulated widely. The site I gave earlier was one of the few that was not that file.
This site seems to have a slightly more serious approach. Or at least a non-partisan approach, as they also have a list of embarassing Clinton quotes. At any rate, they give dates and other info on all the quotes, not just some of them.
The interesting thing is that the quote you are interested in is not there. That doesn’t necessarily prove anything, but they have most of his other boners in there. So their leaving it out could indicate that it’s something along the same lines as the “Latin in Latin America” pseudoquote, an invention of someone in the press. You might contact the owners of the site to see what they know of the authenticity of the quote in question.
My favorite Quayle joke was the one about how they were going to make a movie of his military exploits entitled “Thirty Seconds Over Indianapolis.”
It’s possible that Quayle was both an idiot and was treated badly by some reporters. Where other politicians’ moronic musings have come and gone, Quayle’s have reached legendary proportions. It’s not whether he was an idiot or not; he was famous for being an idiot, and there are other politicians who I think are at least as idiotic, but don’t get the same kind of press.