From: f67700241@violet.ccit.arizona.edu (Greg Franklin)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.dan-quayle
Subject: NY TIMES ARTICLE: Quayle Speaks Just Fine (With a Script, That Is)
Date: 8 Oct 92 21:17:03 GMT
Distribution: world,local
Organization: University of Arizona
Nntp-Posting-User: f67700241

Recopied without permission.  NY Times, 10/7/92.  Permission to 
extract appropriate Quayle Quotes (tm) granted.

[Beginning of article]

Quayle Speaks Just Fine (With a Script, That Is)

by Kevin Sack (Special to the NYT)

  WASHINGTON, Oct. 4 -- With his speech at the Republican National
Convention, and in thought-provoking addresses on everything from legal
issues to cultural elitism, Vice President Dan Quayle has gone a long
way this year toward disproving the notion, voiced most harshly by his
own wife, that he cannot deliver a speech.
  But recent moments on the campaign trail suggest that Mr. Quayle is
still not sure-footed when he is forced to speak extemporaneously, as
he will be in the Vice-Presidential debate on Oct. 13. Next to his
convention speech, Mr. Quayle and his aides view the debate as their
best opportunity to enhance the Vice President's image, a mission that
is crucial to his political future, both this year and in 1996.
  Mr. Quayle seems to have the most difficulty with technical questions
about Administration policy. Consider a question-and-answer session
following a recent health-care speech by Mr. Quayle in Phoenix, where
one man asked how President Bush's proposal for medical-malpractice
reform would treat damages awarded for pain and suffering.

`Kevin, What Do We Do...?'

  Mr. Quayle, an earnest look on his face, began to fidget. "I, I can't
tell you exactly what we do on that pain and suffering in the ----" the
Vice President said, his voice trailing off as he looked offstage
toward Kevin E. Moley, the deputy secretary of the Department of Health
and Human Services, who has been coaching him. "Kevin, what do we do on
the pain and suffering on our malpractice proposal?"
  After listening briefly to Mr. Moley, Mr. Quayle continued. "So, it
doesn't address it specifically," he said. "The state -- the states
could in fact -- what we basically do is -- try to do -- is get the
states to come up with medical malpractice legislation. We have, I 
think it's five criteria in our suggested recommendations. But once
they meet the five criteria, then they get a favorable distribution 
from us if they meet -- basically forcing the states to adopt this
medical malpractice legislation, and that's the way that you do it."
  What Mr. Quayle presumably did not recall is that one of the five
malpractice measures would require states to place a cap of $250,000 on
damages for pain and suffering to avoid a cutoff of federal financing.
  Some members of the audience at St. Joseph's Hospital did not find
Mr. Quayle's response very reassuring.
  "If I was standing up there and was supposedly putting forth a policy
for something as important as a campaign for President, I would have
had that answer on the tip of my tongue, especially if I was a lawyer,"
said Dr. Jeffrey H. Hill.

Refers to Index Cards

  Despite Marilyn Quayle's pronouncement earlier this year in an
interview with The Washington Post that her husband "can't read a
speech," Mr. Quayle has excelled during the 1992 campaign when reading
from a text. His prose was both humorous and elegant, for instance, in
a speech two weeks ago in Fort Worth in which he unveiled a top-10 list
of Gov. Bill Clinton's flip-flops.
  But after almost four years as Vice President and after months of
campaigning, Mr. Quayle still refers to index cards when delivering the
most standard speech. And while he is capable of handling a technical
question adroitly, as he did last week in answering a query on the
obscure issue of ethanol production, Mr. Quayle often finds himself
sinking when he is without the security of a script.
  It does not necessarily happen every day, but it happens often enough
to raise questions about the Vice President's facility with both
language and subject matter.
  On Sept. 20, for instance, on the NBC News program "Meet the Press,"
David Broder, the Washington Post political reporter and columnist,
asked Mr. Quayle about the Administration's opposition to a bill aimed
at limiting cable television rates.

  MR. BRODER: Doesn't that sound like a case where the public is
getting shafted and there may be a need for local regulation or F.C.C.
regulation?

  MR. QUAYLE: Yeah. There is F.C.C. regulation. There is regulation.

  Q. There's not control of rates or service.

  A. That's true, but there is ----

  Q. Well, tell me in simple terms that people can understand: Why
shouldn't they be regulated?

  A. O.K., simple terms, here's the choice. Here's the choice in simple
terms. Are you going to try to constrain the price increase through
regulation or through genuine competition? Our preference is to do it
through genuine competition.

  Q. But there isn't genuine competition.

  A. That's right. Because you have -- but the cities that grant these
things can certainly be more competitive and have more openness if
they're ----

  Q. So your suggestion is that they go out and have two or three
different companies wire these communities to get competition?

  A. I'm not going to get into the micromanagement of the cable
industry.

  In the last month, Mr. Quayle has visited a number of hospitals to
highlight the Administration's position on health care. But his well-
informed audiences have often found his presentations shallow. When a
woman at a hospital in Colorado Springs asked Mr. Quayle last week
whether Hawaii's universal health-care plan might serve as a national
model, Mr. Quayle left it unclear whether he knew anything about the
plan. He tackled the question anyway.

Arriving Unprepared

  "Hawaii is a unique state," he said. "It is a small state. It is a
state that is by itself. It is a -- it is different than the other 49
states. Well, all states are different, but it's got a particularly
unique situation."
  Mr. Quayle also suffers at times from a lack of preparation. In late
August he called a news conference while touring a high-technology 
factory near Detroit to announce that the Pentagon would spend $300
million to upgrade the Army's M-1 tanks at a Michigan plant. But when
reporters asked Mr. Quayle how the tanks would be upgraded and how
many jobs would be savced, he had no idea.
  "I guess you'll have to ask the details to the management," Mr.
Quayle said, standing next to Gov. John Engler of Michigan. "I am here.
The Governor and I are announcing this today. It was just signed off on
by the Secretary of Defense as something that we have been monitoring,
and the Governor obviously has been very involved in this. And we're
making this announcement today."
  There are times, of course, when the obfuscation is deliberate. The
Vice President has shown great skill, for instance, in muddying his
position on abortion. He has said in recent interviews that he supports
the Republican platform, which calls for a total ban on abortion. But
he has been careful not to utter the phrase "constitutional ban," and
he has said that he also supports Pennsylvania's abortion law, which
would simply restrict abortion.

Playing Down the Debate

  Aides to Mr. Quayle and to the Bush campaign said they are not 
concerned about Mr. Quayle's performance in the debate, even though
Senator Al Gore, his Democratic opponent, is known for his mastery of
policy details. The Vice-Presidential debate will be a minor event
compared with the three Presidential debates, they said. And they are
confident that Mr. Quayle, who has been reading briefing books for
more than a month, will be ready for the challenge.
  Mr. Quayle and his staff also believe that the Vice President is
beautifully positioned because low expectations could transform a
mere draw into a victory. But they recognize that Mr. Quayle will
have little margin for error because of the public's perception of
him as a bumbler.
  "That's the problem with being Dan Quayle," said one aide, who
spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Sometimes there's a data
download as he's shifting gears. But I think he knows the issues
better than most people think."

[End of article]
-- 
Greg "Mockingbird" Franklin      Interviewer: "Sir, how do you spell relief?"
f67700241@ccit.arizona.edu               Dan: "R-O-L-A-I-D-S-E."

"[George Bush is] the most ruthless white man in the history of the planet."
	-- Richard Ben Cramer, author of _What It Takes_
"The President scores much better than Bill Clinton."
	-- Dan, comparing Bush's record of marital infidelity to Clinton's
Newsgroups: alt.fan.dan-quayle