DanMargarita.com

Oh, I don't mean his misspelling of the word "potato." In the fifth grade I got knocked out of a spelling bee on the word "bureau" and I still wouldn't get it right without the invention of spell check.

I'm talking major gaffes. Consider these gems:

"We don't want to go back to tomorrow, we want to go forward."

"I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future."

"We're going to have the best educated American people in the world."

"I was recently on tour of Latin America, and the only regret I have was that I didn't study Latin harder in school so I could converse with those people."

"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."

"Republicans understand the importance of bondage between mother and child."

"Welcome President Bush, Mrs. Bush, and my fellow astronauts."

"What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind. How true that is."

"We have a firm commitment to NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe. We are part of NATO. We are part of Europe."

"A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls."

"Quite frankly, teachers are the only profession that teach our children."

There are plenty more, but I imagine my editor would prefer me to do a little original writing since he's not paying me to copy things that I found on the Internet.

I can't help but feel a little sorry for Quayle. He tried so hard to show us that he was more than a European astronaut who made good judgments in the future.

He may or may not be a very bright guy, but do you want someone so prone to making idiotic statements running the free world?

Suppose he's staring down the leaders of Communist China? That would be the worst possible time to give a Henny Youngman-esque "now take Taiwan, please."

The media certainly has its share of faults, but it's too easy to blame them for the former V.P.'s stumbles. It's not as though a mischievous Sam Donaldson was constantly standing off to the side with joke cue cards. He said these things of his own volition.

Gerald Ford suffered from a similar problem. Though we were constantly told that he was our most athletic President ever, he was constantly caught stumbling by whatever TV camera happened to be around. His supporters always blamed the liberal media for trying to portray him in a negative light, but again, Dan Rather wasn't constantly throwing ball bearings on the ground to trip Ford up. He stumbled completely on his own.

One couldn't help but admire Quayle's mettle in the face of constant ridicule from late night comics. He didn't back down an inch, telling his critics,

"I stand by all the misstatements that I've made."