Perspective

Ben Quayle? Why does that name sound so familiar? My son has a friend named Ben. I knew a kid in school who was a Benjamin, but he went by "Benji," not "Ben." Maybe it's that last name. I remember, a long time ago, we had a vice-president named Quayle. Well, it just so happens that these two are related. Ben is Dan Quayle's son. Ben's daddy was second-in-charge back in 1989 to 1993. He wanted to be the Republican nominee for President of the United Stated in 2000, but that honor went to the Pinhead. Perhaps Dan's most notable policy decision may have been to take on a fictional character: TV's Murphy Brown, whom he believed was contributing to our nation's "poverty of values." That was back in 1992, and he lost the election that year, so it's been a while since Daddy Dan has been in the headlines.
His son is about to make up for that. Ben is running for congress in Arizona. He's got a campaign ad in which he refers to Barack Obama as "the worst president in history." He also maintains that his generation will inherit a "weakened country." Hold on just a second there, Ben. Aren't you and Barack from the same generation? There's a sixteen year age difference, but a generation? But why quibble about a few years, when we have all of history to argue about. The worst president in history? Maybe first we should define our terms: I'm fairly certain that Ben is only referring to Presidents of the United States, not other countries or other highly placed officials. Like the president of the Kiwanis a few counties over who got arrested for embezzling club funds for his mistress' plastic surgery. He was an awful president. Maybe the worst in history, but we should probably stick to Chief Executives of the United States.
Maybe we should just start with his dad's boss, Pinhead's dad. He left office with a fifty-seven percent favorable rating. Not bad, considering his son had a fifty-nine percent unfavorable rating. Neither one of them was any John Tyler.
Yes, John Tyler was once President of the United States. He could only ratchet up nine percent in his favor by the time he packed his office up in 1845. He didn't even get along with his own party. Impeachment proceedings followed, including charges of corruption and official misconduct. That resolution was defeated, making it one of the few victories of his four years in office. Unless you count the annexation of Texas as a victory. The guy he replaced, William Henry Harrison, managed to get into double digits of approval in the thirty-one days he lived to serve. Last week, Barack Obama was dipping below the waterline with only forty-five percent of those responding approving of his ability to steer the ship of state.
Again, not exactly John Tyler numbers, but certainly not worst. Meanwhile, we wait for history, since time will tell if Ben was using that keen Quayle intellect to divine the truth in advance, or maybe he is simply taking a page from his dad's book, the one where he told Sam Donaldson, "I stand by my misstatements." Or maybe it was George Santayana, who wrote, "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." No word on Mister Santayana's approval rating.