Politics has always attracted more than its share of pretentious blowhards and precocious wordsmiths. However, the emphasis on eloquence has proven to be a two-edged sword for some. Recently, there has been a lot of focus on “Dubya” and his somewhat unique vocabulary. His attempted verbosity has given us such gems as “Pledgealleigance (pledging your allegiance to one nation under God),” “disassemble (that means not tell the truth),” and “contamidated.” (For more on Dubya’s slippery grasp of the English language, click here.) But before there was “Dubya,” there was Dan Quayle.
Dan Quayle served as Vice President from 1989 to 1993 under President George Herber Walker Bush. During his time in office he was the source of numerous comments of an inadvertantly humorous nature. Some were observations that can only be described as painfully obvious (”A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls.”), while others were so logically convoluted that one could only guess at his meaning (”We don’t want to go back to tomorrow, we want to go forward.”). In any case, he has given me and many others many a laugh at his expense. Because of this, I feel that naming him a Towering Intellect is well within the spirit of this site. Dan said it best: “People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history.” How true that is.