I KNEW....
It is the most memorable - and rightly so - line - ever uttered in a Presidential or Vice Presidential debate. (I say "rightly so" because the year in which the line was uttered was the year in which the party and ticket of the candidate who offered the line ran against a ticket that ran the nastiest campaign in modern Presidential history - possibly the nastiest campaign since 1828 - the Presidential campaign which is regarded as the nastiest of them all).
The year: 1988. The debate: the one and only Vice Presidential debate of 1988. The players: Lloyd Bentsen (yes, you now know the story and the line, but who doesn't thrill at hearing it?), Democratuc Vice Presidential candidate from Texas (who actually received one electoral vote that year, as he and Michael Dukakis lost 526-111) and Republican Senator J. Danforth Quayle.
I don't recall who asked the question - who was the moderator (it was not Bernard Shaw - he saved his colossally rude question about Kitty Dukakis being raped for later on in the debate cycle) - the evening of the Bentsen-Quayle debate, but at one point, the subject of "experience" came up - specifically, Senator Quayle's lack thereof. Although Quayle, as of 1988, had served in Congress for twelve years, he had been involved in the passage of virtually no legislation of note - even the kind of wedge-issue blather-go-nowhere legislation that conservatives love so much. G.H.W. Bush picked him because he was a young, constipated-looking, handsome for a Stepford-husband-looking conservative.
And so, Quayle was ready with a reply to the "experience" question. "I had the same amount of experience as a young Jack Kennedy did (i.e. Kennedy had served twelve years in Congress right before running for President - just as Quayle had done before running for VP) before he ran for President." The audience - and Bentsen were surprised to know that Quayle knew Kennedy on a first-name basis. The glib remark, delivered with characteristic smugness, was met with theatrical relish by Bentsen, then 69:
"Senator, I knew Jack Kennedy. Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. Senator, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy." Instantaneously, people started applauding. Some made catcalls - that clearly indicated they were mocking Quayle, not Bentsen. Very few, if any, utterances from the audience, suggested members of the audience found Bentsen's reply offensive. Bentsen took his time making the remark, and looked Quayle right in the face as he made it.
About five seconds later, Quayle, trying to muster that bullshit holier-than-thou moral righteousness -slime dressed as class - that Republicans are always trying to fool people with - his face beet-red, said, "that was uncalled for." AFTER Quayle made this statement, people were still cheering Bentsen's remark.
And why shouldn't they have been? This was a point in time AFTER Willie Horton ads had been ran to the point of saturation (GHW Bush, by the way, had sponsored a furlough program that resulted in the DEATHS of several people; Dukasis was simply continuing a furlough program of a Republican predecessor); AFTER ads blasting Dukakis for refusing to sign a bill mandating that children recite a pledge had saturated the airwaves (Dukakis didn't sign it because he was familiar with the Constitution and with West Virginia School Board v. Barnette - but fidelity to the Constitution makes one unpatriotic in Bushworld!), AFTER Bush claimed he was "an environmentalist," AFTER he attacked Dukakis for being responsible for "the sludge in Boston Harbor" (an accusation Dukakis answered, properly, by stating that if Reagan's EPA had done its job, Massachusetts would not have had to expend a huge chunk of its budget to clean up the harbor to restore it to the safe condition it was then presently at), and AFTER Bush attacked Dukakis as being "anti-religion" (Dukakis stated he was against prayer in public schools - because - shocker - the Supreme Court had ruled it unconstitutional!)
Bentsen's sublime retort stands out like a crown jewel in the 1988 campaign, a campaign so rendered so frivolous by one side's mudslinging that political experts have called it "Trivial Pursuit." Alas, Lloyd Bentsen died today, at age 86. He will always be remembered, if, for nothing else, as someone who injected a little bit of the pursuit of excellence in this thoroughly despicable Republican smear-job posing as a campaign.
The year: 1988. The debate: the one and only Vice Presidential debate of 1988. The players: Lloyd Bentsen (yes, you now know the story and the line, but who doesn't thrill at hearing it?), Democratuc Vice Presidential candidate from Texas (who actually received one electoral vote that year, as he and Michael Dukakis lost 526-111) and Republican Senator J. Danforth Quayle.
I don't recall who asked the question - who was the moderator (it was not Bernard Shaw - he saved his colossally rude question about Kitty Dukakis being raped for later on in the debate cycle) - the evening of the Bentsen-Quayle debate, but at one point, the subject of "experience" came up - specifically, Senator Quayle's lack thereof. Although Quayle, as of 1988, had served in Congress for twelve years, he had been involved in the passage of virtually no legislation of note - even the kind of wedge-issue blather-go-nowhere legislation that conservatives love so much. G.H.W. Bush picked him because he was a young, constipated-looking, handsome for a Stepford-husband-looking conservative.
And so, Quayle was ready with a reply to the "experience" question. "I had the same amount of experience as a young Jack Kennedy did (i.e. Kennedy had served twelve years in Congress right before running for President - just as Quayle had done before running for VP) before he ran for President." The audience - and Bentsen were surprised to know that Quayle knew Kennedy on a first-name basis. The glib remark, delivered with characteristic smugness, was met with theatrical relish by Bentsen, then 69:
"Senator, I knew Jack Kennedy. Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. Senator, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy." Instantaneously, people started applauding. Some made catcalls - that clearly indicated they were mocking Quayle, not Bentsen. Very few, if any, utterances from the audience, suggested members of the audience found Bentsen's reply offensive. Bentsen took his time making the remark, and looked Quayle right in the face as he made it.
About five seconds later, Quayle, trying to muster that bullshit holier-than-thou moral righteousness -slime dressed as class - that Republicans are always trying to fool people with - his face beet-red, said, "that was uncalled for." AFTER Quayle made this statement, people were still cheering Bentsen's remark.
And why shouldn't they have been? This was a point in time AFTER Willie Horton ads had been ran to the point of saturation (GHW Bush, by the way, had sponsored a furlough program that resulted in the DEATHS of several people; Dukasis was simply continuing a furlough program of a Republican predecessor); AFTER ads blasting Dukakis for refusing to sign a bill mandating that children recite a pledge had saturated the airwaves (Dukakis didn't sign it because he was familiar with the Constitution and with West Virginia School Board v. Barnette - but fidelity to the Constitution makes one unpatriotic in Bushworld!), AFTER Bush claimed he was "an environmentalist," AFTER he attacked Dukakis for being responsible for "the sludge in Boston Harbor" (an accusation Dukakis answered, properly, by stating that if Reagan's EPA had done its job, Massachusetts would not have had to expend a huge chunk of its budget to clean up the harbor to restore it to the safe condition it was then presently at), and AFTER Bush attacked Dukakis as being "anti-religion" (Dukakis stated he was against prayer in public schools - because - shocker - the Supreme Court had ruled it unconstitutional!)
Bentsen's sublime retort stands out like a crown jewel in the 1988 campaign, a campaign so rendered so frivolous by one side's mudslinging that political experts have called it "Trivial Pursuit." Alas, Lloyd Bentsen died today, at age 86. He will always be remembered, if, for nothing else, as someone who injected a little bit of the pursuit of excellence in this thoroughly despicable Republican smear-job posing as a campaign.
posted by EnterCenter at 5:40 PM
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