Dan Quayle
Dan Quayle
James Danforth Quayle (born February 4, 1947), better known as Dan Quayle, was the 44th Vice President of the United States under George H. W. Bush (1989-1993).
Quayle was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. He graduated from DePauw University in 1969 with a B.A. degree in political science. He was then elected in 1976 to the House of Representatives at age 29. At age 30, he was elected to the Senate. As Vice President he made visits to 47 countries and chaired the President's Council on Competitiveness and the National Space Council.
He was widely ridiculed in the media and by some of the general public as a mental lightweight and was prone to verbal gaffes; as a result of this reputation, a great many apocryphal quotations are attributed to him. Most famous was his correcting a student's spelling of potato as "potatoe". When this story is related, it is usually not mentioned that Quayle was relying on a spelling bee card on which the word had been misspelled by the teacher although admittedly Quayle should have picked that up.
Quayle also made news for criticizing single-parenting by singling out the Murphy Brown situation comedy, starring Candice Bergen.
