The Vice-Presidency Is a Terrible Thing to Waste 
                                        By Joe Queenan 

     On Nov. 8, 1992, I published an uncharacteristically prescient op-ed piece in the Washington Post. In it, I
     chastised the American people for the way they had treated Vice-President Dan Quayle over the previous four
     years and warned them that in the coming months and years, when a transcontinental chuckle was most
     desperately needed, the congenially buffoonish Dan Quayle and his cryogenically preserved wife would no longer
     be there to provide it. 

     Instead of having the Humblest Hoosier holding AK-47s upside down and telling the NAACP "a mind is a terrible
     thing," we would have the stolid, resolutely unamusing Al Gore on hand to lecture us about the ozone layer. Unlike
     Quayle, who had an intuitive grasp of the basic clownishness of the office that he occupied, and who did his best
     to carry out his duties in a poltroonish fashion, Gore would spend the next four years behaving like a
     president-in-waiting, acting with dignity, circumspection and aplomb. 

     Unlike Quayle, famous for misspelling the word "potato" and for saying that "the western part of Pennsylvania is
     very, uh, midwestern, and the eastern part is more east" Gore would do nothing stupid, say nothing stupid, and
     probably not even think anything stupid for the next four years. In doing so, he would bore this country to tears. 

     Four years later, that eerie prophesy has come to pass. America, a nation badly in need of a good laugh, has given
     up any hope that our stolid vice-president will provide it, and instead must turn to mad bombers and putatively
     homicidal ex-gridiron stars for its daily quota of chuckles. 

     How different things were in the past. Most of the great vice-presidents understood that the raison d'etre of the
     office was to keep the Republic in stitches with their waggish pranks. Andrew Johnson got bombed on the way to
     his inauguration. Harry Truman wore ridiculous sports shirts, played the piano badly, and didn't even know the
     United States was working on an atomic bomb until FDR died. Henry Wallace was an effete pinko, Richard
     Nixon had that ridiculous dog, Spiro Agnew was a tongue-tied knucklehead, and Gerald Ford was forever falling
     down stairs. Teddy Roosevelt planned to spend eight years as McKinley's sidekick studying for his bar exam,
     while Thomas Marshall, not long after the Germans sank the Lusitania, told a grieving public that any American
     stupid enough to travel abroad during wartime deserved whatever he got. And Aaron Burr spent most of his four
     years in office at the firing range, preparing to kill off Alexander Hamilton. These were men who understood what
     the vice-presidency was all about. These were kings of comedy. 

     There is one further reason to mourn the passing of a man like Dan Quayle from the scene: He never got a shot at
     the title. Americans are always complaining that politicians are generic, interchangeable hacks. We are always
     waiting for new faces to appear, for new blood to bubble to the surface. Dan Quayle was that new blood. When
     Dan Quayle was waiting in the wings, America knew what it was like to live life on the edge. An historian once
     told me that the basic job of the President of the United States is to lock up at night so everyone else can sleep
     safely. Well, if Dan Quayle had ever become president, an awful lot of people would have been keeping very late
     hours. But in the long run, this would have been good for the country. A Dan Quayle presidency would have
     served as a powerful metaphor, reminding us all that life is cheap, that the price of eternal freedom is eternal
     vigilance, that he who is without sin should cast the first stone, that diamonds are forever. If nothing else, a Dan
     Quayle presidency would have been a barrel of laughs. 

     Laughs will be hard to come by in the next four years. Should Al Gore, as predicted, win a second term, he will
     effect an even more serious, presidential demeanor as the year 2000 approaches. And even if Bob Dole and Jack
     Kemp should roar back to nip Clinton and Gore at the finish line, it would be inadvisable to look to the sober,
     take-charge Mr. Kemp as a source of entertainment in the next few years. A former place-kicker might have a
     sense of humor, but not a quarterback. As the American people suffer through the next four years, they would be
     wise to remember that they put themselves in this position and have no one to blame but themselves. And should
     they ever again find themselves presented with a chance to re-elect a fabulously gifted, thoroughly good-natured
     stooge like Dan Quayle, here's hoping they won't blow their big chance. As Quayle, quoting George Santayana,
     might put it: "He who cannot remember the past is condemned to remember the past. Or something."