Vice Presidential Debates of Yore
Bob Dole rails on against the “Democratic Wars”. He both has a point, and he doesn’t have a point. At any rate, he certainly is grouchy, ain’t he?
Dan Quayle says this: ” have as much experience in the Congress as Jack Kennedy did when he sought the presidency.”
Loyd Bentsen responds thusly: “Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”
Comparing the current occupant of the White House and Quayle, I must say: everybody owes Dan Quayle an apology.
Saturday Night Live has the “Dukakis After Dark” sketch, where Bentsen tells the story over and over again the the guests of how he zinged Quayle, the guests growing weary of that anecdote.
James Stockdale shouts out, “Who am I? Why am I here?” The problem with the debate that follows is not that he asked the question, but that he never answers it. The Saturday Night Live sketch that follows shows Ross Perot telling Stockdale what a great debate peformance he had, driving Stockdale out to the woods, and leaving him there. For what it’s worth, the actual opening statement isn’t too bad… and the only problem is with Stockdale’s inflection and with the general unease with which he had through the rest of the debate.
Nobody remembers a damned thing beyond those three moments. Bush — Ferraro? Apparently, all we get there is Ferraro disarming Bush for a patronizing attitude of sorts. Gore — Kemp, anybody? Everybody remembers, vaguely in the back of their mind, that Lieberman — Cheney had a certain tea-party quality to it (sort of like the second debate between Gore and Bush, where the most common words spoken were “I agree with my opponent”), but it’s all a blur.
Today we have Edwards — Cheney. I don’t really want to hear either one. I’m not likely to get a satisying answer to my question “Mr. Cheney, how can you keep saying such absolute rubbish?”, or “How many Enron officials were there at the Energy Meeting?”. They say that Cheney has good experience, what with all his Meet the Press appearances. I don’t know if Cheney has appeared on those shows as of late… I know he was there the week after 9/11, and that wasn’t exactly threatening in any way, shape, or form.