The Clothes Have No Emperor Part 30

OCTOBER 1988.

10/4/88.

The Bush campaign begins airing a stark black-and-white spot featuring prisoners going through a revolving door, while an ominous voice-over talks about "weekend furloughs to first-degree murderers" and misleading statistics about Dukakis' record on crime are flashed on the screen.

10/5/88.

On the morning of his debate with Democratic vice presidential candidate Lloyd Bentsen, Dan Quayle visits the Omaha Civic Auditorium to check out the debate site. "You're going to see Dan Quayle as he really is," he tells reporters. Inside, an ABC camera crew catches him rehearsing with Bush media adviser Roger Ailes. "Hey, Roger," he says nervously, "does ... on, on this, you know, if I'm gonna, if I, if I decide on my gesture over there ... is that all right ... you don't mind?" Leaving the hall after a sound check, he declares, "The mike works. That's very important to make sure the mike works and ours is working well."

10/5/88.

Asked three times at the debate what he would actually do if he suddenly became President and three times robotically reciting his meager qualifications Dan Quayle testily observes, "I have as much experience in the Congress as Jack Kennedy did when he sought the presidency."

"Senator," says Lloyd Bentsen somberly, delivering what is instantly recognized as the sound bite of the night, "I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."

"That was really uncalled for, Senator," whimpers Quayle, affecting the look of a wounded fawn.

"You're the one who was making the comparison, Senator," Bentsen shoots back, "and I'm one who knew him well. And frankly I think you're so far apart in the objectives you choose for your country that I did not think the comparison was well-taken." the one who was making the comparison, Senator," Bentsen shoots back, "and I'm one who knew him well. And frankly I think you're so far apart in the objectives you choose for your country that I did not think the comparison was well-taken."

Afterward, campaign chief James Baker a.s.sesses Quayle's performance: "When you think about what might have happened, we have to be pretty happy."

10/6/88.

"I think that remark was a cheap shot unbecoming a senator of the United States."

--President Reagan who not too long ago called Michael Dukakis an "invalid" complaining about Lloyd Bentsen's a.s.sault on Quayle 10/6/88.

Dan Quayle explains that the reason he had so much trouble telling the debate audience what he would do if he suddenly became President was that he "had not had that question before."

10/7/88.

Michael Dukakis travels to a Missouri automotive parts plant to decry foreign owners.h.i.+p of American businesses, blissfully unaware that the plant is owned by Italians. "Maybe the Republican ticket wants our children to work for foreign owners and owe their future to foreign owners," he declares, "but that's not the kind of future Lloyd Bentsen and I want for America." Crowd response is muted.

10/7/88.

Dan Quayle, whose handlers are struggling to fool people into thinking he's not an immature brat, sprays water on reporters during a campaign stop. "This," he says, "is for all the articles you've written about me."

Columnist Murray Kempton writes, "Dan Quayle can no longer be dismissed as a public man incapable of enlarging his stature. On Wednesday afternoon, he was only a vague misfortune for the Republicans, and overnight, he swelled himself close to the proportions of a disaster."

10/10/88.

Dan Quayle is again asked what he would do if he had to a.s.sume the presidency. "Certainly, I know what to do," he says angrily, "and when I am Vice President and I will be there will be contingency plans under different sets of situations and I tell you what, I'm not going to go out and hold a news conference about it. I'm going to put it in a safe and keep it there! Does that answer your question?"

10/12/88.

Humiliated by Bush aides who describe their job as having to "potty train" him, Dan Quayle declares his independence from his handlers. "Lookit," he says, "I've done it their way this far and now it's my turn. I'm my own handler. Any questions? Ask me ... There's not going to be any more handler stories because I'm the handler ... I am Doctor Spin." Speculation instantly begins that his handlers told him to say this.

10/13/88.

"Most alarming is his staunch refusal to inform the public about his performance in college and law school or to provide his academic and his disciplinary records. He has admitted 'mediocre grades,' but he won't release the records. If he has nothing to hide, why has he permitted rumors to persist, not only about poor grades, but disciplinary actions for plagiarism and the hiring of surrogates to take his exams?"

--Full page ad in major US newspapers demanding, "RELEASE DAN QUAYLE'S COLLEGE RECORDS NOW NOW"

10/13/88.

"It's everything he's ever done, basically."

--Anti-Bush protester Liela Rand explaining her distaste for the candidate 10/13/88.

Michael Dukakis arrives at UCLA with one goal for the second debate: Act like a normal human. He wastes no time demonstrating his inability to do so, answering Bernard Shaw's unusually blunt first question "If Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?" with a bloodless recital of his opposition to capital punishment and the importance of fighting drugs. The race is understood to be over. As columnist Murray Kempton writes, Dukakis is "so pathetically terminal a case that to keep on noticing his limitations is a kind of cruelty."

10/14/88.

Welcoming the crew of the s.p.a.ce shuttle Discovery to the White House, President Reagan wonders aloud how long it will be before "the children of America turn to their parents and say, 'Gee, Mom and Dad, can I borrow the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p tonight?'" No one hazards a guess.

10/15/88.

"I'm picking up Bush vibrations / He's the best guy to lead this nation."

--Beach Boys Mike Love and Bruce Johnston serenading Bush rallies in California 10/17/88.

Michael Dukakis meets with a supporter in a Cleveland diner. "Let's kick some a.s.s out there, okay?" the man says. "Okay," says Dukakis dully. "Very good. We'll do it."

10/17/88.

Spokesperson Elaine Crispen confirms that, despite her 1982 announcement that she would not do it anymore, Nancy Reagan has continued to receive free designer clothing over the past six years. "She made a promise not to do this again and she broke her little promise," says Crispen, who points out as Reagan aides so often seem to do that no actual laws were broken.

10/18/88.

"I am the future."

--Dan Quayle 10/18/88.

Children's Express reporter Suki Chong, 11, interviews Dan Quayle for a PBS show about the candidates. "Let's suppose I was s.e.xually molested by my father and I became pregnant," she begins. "Would you want me to carry that baby to term?"

"My answer would be yes," says the visibly uncomfortable candidate.

"But, don't you think this would ruin my whole life ruin my whole life?" asks the girl.

"I would just like to see the baby have an opportunity."

"So," says Chong, with a directness infuriatingly lacking in her older colleagues, "although you're not actually killing me, you would sacrifice my prospects for the future for that baby."

"See, I've gotten to know you just a little bit," says Quayle, "and you're a very strong woman. You're a strong person. And ... though this would be a traumatic experience that you would never forget, I think that you would be very successful in life."

Later, she asks Lee At.w.a.ter if the message Bush's choice of Quayle sends is that "kids should get average grades in schools?" At.w.a.ter claims Quayle "wasn't an average student." Replies Chong contemptuously, "Of course he was."

10/20/88.

"For a public official's spouse to be 'on the take' is wrong, plain and simple. Nancy Reagan knew it, hid it for years, lied when caught, and now seeks to have a flock of taxpayer-paid press agents explain her ethical lapse away ..."

--William Safire on the First Lady's inability to just say no when it comes to her clothing addiction 10/20/88.

"We have gold and yellow and some red and, believe me, those are Republican colors. Bold colors, bright colors, future colors! You know what our opponents' colors are? Gray and dark gray!"

--Dan Quayle talking about the fall colors in rural Ohio 10/21/88.

"If I'm elected President, if I'm remembered for anything, it would be this: a complete and total ban on chemical weapons. Their destruction forever. That's my solemn mission."

--George Bush, who cast several tie-breaking votes in the Senate to resume production of nerve gas 10/21/88.

Campaigning for Michael Dukakis, comedian Albert Brooks says, "Bush picked Quayle because he thought he would appeal to people in their 30s and 40s. Unfortunately, people with higher IQs don't seem to like him as much."

10/24/88.

Convicted killer John Wayne Gacy objects to his name being used "to scare people into voting for George Bush" in a campaign flier claiming he'd be eligible for weekend furloughs if he'd committed his 33 murders in Ma.s.sachusetts.

10/24/88.

Dan Quayle is asked whether he'd want his wife to have the baby if she were raped and became pregnant. In the event of such a "tragic" situation, he says, he would hope that she "would have the child." And how he would feel about raising, say, Willie Horton's child? He is not asked.

10/24/88.

"Okay, our focus: Are Babies Being Bred for Satanic Sacrifice? Controversial, to say the least. Unbelievable, to say the least. Disgusting, to say the least. We'll be right back."

--Geraldo Rivera on his daily talk show 10/25/88.

Geraldo Rivera presents his first and last NBC special, Devil Wors.h.i.+p: Exposing Satan's Underground Devil Wors.h.i.+p: Exposing Satan's Underground, which The New York Times The New York Times calls "p.o.r.nography masquerading as journalism." Excerpts from his introduction: "... Drinking blood ... grave robbing ... mutilated animals ... drinking her 15-year-old victim's blood ... gouged out his victim's eyes ... butchered his mother ... cut the ears off ... drinking his own blood ... The acts ... are so horrible that the question could fairly be raised again: Why are we doing this broadcast?" calls "p.o.r.nography masquerading as journalism." Excerpts from his introduction: "... Drinking blood ... grave robbing ... mutilated animals ... drinking her 15-year-old victim's blood ... gouged out his victim's eyes ... butchered his mother ... cut the ears off ... drinking his own blood ... The acts ... are so horrible that the question could fairly be raised again: Why are we doing this broadcast?"

Later, he asks the parent of a victim, "What must it be like to a father to think that his own son was disposed of in bits and pieces and thrown in the garbage?" After recycling excerpts from an old interview with Charles Manson "today's top satanic celebrity" Geraldo says, "That man is so so repugnant. All of these satanic murderers are." Says former NBC News president Reuven Frank, "Geraldo should be arrested for exposing himself." repugnant. All of these satanic murderers are." Says former NBC News president Reuven Frank, "Geraldo should be arrested for exposing himself."

10/27/88.

Michael Dukakis tells Dan Rather that he might not have responded to Bush's attacks "as quickly as I should have."

10/27/88.

"I would guess that there's adequate low-income housing in the country."

--Dan Quayle offering a very uneducated guess about the homeless situation 10/28/88.

The Philadelphia Daily News says it "could have endorsed the 1979-80 George Bush," but not the 1988 version "who pretends, despite all the evidence, that J. Danforth Quayle is not a callow moron." says it "could have endorsed the 1979-80 George Bush," but not the 1988 version "who pretends, despite all the evidence, that J. Danforth Quayle is not a callow moron."

10/31/88.

The Islamic Jihad releases a taped statement by Terry Anderson held in Lebanon since March 1985 in which he accuses the US of blocking efforts to free him and the other hostages. "I don't think that was Terry speaking," says President Reagan. "I think he had a script that was given to him. When I was given a script, I always read the lines."

10/31/88.

Patricia Seaton Lawford, widow of Peter, publishes a biography of her husband which features his recollection that the First Lady, during her unmarried actress days, "was known for giving the best head in Hollywood." No reporter dares ask the President if this is "fiction."

NOVEMBER 1988.

11/1/88.

Campaigning in California, President Reagan quotes that well-known character from fiction, "Huckleferry Binn."

11/2/88.

Asked if the woman raped by Willie Horton should have had his baby if she'd become pregnant, Dan Quayle says yes. He goes on to display his continuing gynecological ignorance, claiming that rape victims wouldn't need to worry about abortions if they'd just submit to the "normal medical procedure" of a "D & C" (dilation and curettage) right afterward. In fact, uterus sc.r.a.ping is never part of post-rape care, since a fertilized egg takes several days to enter the womb.

11/3/88.

"Respond to the attacks immediately. Don't let them get away with a thing."

--Michael Dukakis revealing what he's learned from the campaign, though not explaining why he needed to learn it again, having been beaten by a similar campaign 10 years earlier 11/3/88.

Geraldo Rivera gets his long-overdue comeuppance during the taping of a segment on "Teen Hatemongers" when talk show brawler Roy Innis, with the host's blessing, attempts to throttle a white supremacist. During the resulting melee the logical culmination of a year of increasingly confrontational TV programming a chair lands in the sensation-mongering host's face, demolis.h.i.+ng his nose.

11/4/88.

Oklahoma prison inmate Brett Kimberlin, who has been trying to call a press conference to claim that he used to sell marijuana to Dan Quayle, is placed in solitary confinement.

11/5/88.

"If you ask me, as Robert Palmer has been singing recently, you are simply irresistible."

--President Reagan responding to cheers from college students 11/6/88.

George Bush rejects poll results showing that most voters blame him for the negative tone of the campaign, citing instead "those personal attacks night after night on me, on my character at that idiotic Democratic convention."

11/6/88.

"I suppose three important things certainly come to my mind that we want to say thank you. The first would be our family. Your family, my family which is composed of an immediate family of a wife and three children, a larger family with grandparents and aunts and uncles. We all have our family, whichever that may be ... The very beginnings of civilization, the very beginnings of this country, goes back to the family. And time and time again, I'm often reminded, especially in this presidential campaign, of the importance of a family, and what a family means to this country. And so when you pay thanks I suppose the first thing that would come to mind would be to thank the Lord for the family."

--Dan Quayle ruminating about Thanksgiving 11/7/88.

"So, if I could ask you one last time, tomorrow, when mountains greet the dawn, will you go out there and win one for the Gipper?"

--President Reagan making his last campaign appearance on behalf of George Bush, whose half-hour election eve TV ad omits any mention of a Mr. Dan Quayle 11/8/88.

Dan Quayle celebrates Election Day with a bizarrely ritualistic visit to the dentist. Though he and George Bush are elected by a 54%-46% margin, polls show that Quayle cost the ticket at least 2% of the vote. The Democrats win ten states and 112 electoral votes, their best showing since 1976. Voter turnout 50.16 percent is the lowest since 1924.

11/14/88.

"As we sat in front of our TV set, we realized that something had had changed. No longer did the programming include, at regular intervals, footage of violent criminals going through revolving doors, recitations of the horrors that might be visited on peace-loving Americans if a 'card-carrying member of the ACLU' became President, or bursts of talk about Boston Harbor and 'Taxachusetts.' George Bush was not even President yet, and the United States was already a kinder and gentler place, because the Bush campaign was over." changed. No longer did the programming include, at regular intervals, footage of violent criminals going through revolving doors, recitations of the horrors that might be visited on peace-loving Americans if a 'card-carrying member of the ACLU' became President, or bursts of talk about Boston Harbor and 'Taxachusetts.' George Bush was not even President yet, and the United States was already a kinder and gentler place, because the Bush campaign was over."

--The New Yorker's Talk of the Town 11/15/88.