Profiles in Ignorance: How America's Politicians Got Dumb and Dumber

by Andy Borowitz

On the campaign trail, Stu Spencer worked overtime to keep Quayle from revealing his glaring cluelessness. That meant putting him in front of friendly audiences—“friendly” being a delicate way of saying “white.” “Dan Quayle doesn’t know about cities,” Spencer told the Los Angeles Times. “He doesn’t know who lives there, ghettos, traffic, race, crime, housing, all of that stuff, but we’ll teach him.”XX In deeming Quayle educable, Spencer seemed to believe he’d succeed where the DePauw faculty had failed. Despite his best efforts, Spencer couldn’t stop his pupil from asserting that Republicans “understand the importance of bondage between parent and child,” or that “[t]his election is about who’s going to be the next president of the United States.” Traveling with Quayle, Molly Ivins wasn’t wowed. “I found him dumber than advertised,” she said. “If you put that man’s brain in a bumblebee, it would fly backwards.”