I m adding this back in It s no urban legend though the wording on the portion that you deleted was a little bit off If the West Wing used those phrases then they ripped them from HIM not the other way around This comment was from his Dennis Miller Live from Washington D C set which was released in 1994 Here is the full quote Now I know Stockdale s name has become a buzzword in this culture for doddering old man but let s look at the record folks The guy was the first guy in and the last guy out of Vietnam a war that many Americans including our present President did not want to dirty their hands with The reason he had to turn his hearing aid on at that debate is because those f ing animals knocked his eardrums out when he wouldn t spill his guts He teaches philosophy at Stanford University he s a brilliant sensitive courageous man And yet he committed the one unpardonable sin in our culture he was bad on television Miller went on to jest that the job can t be that hard considering that Dan Quayle had done it for the previous 4 years To be clear this was an unusual move for Miller at the time but he frequently talks about the effect that the 1992 election had on him Dennis Miller has repeatedly stated that the evisceration of Stockdale in 1992 was the first thing that started nudging him to conservative views and September 11th was the straw that broke the camel s back