Dan Quayle

Old Media Ignores Obama's '57 States,' Obsessed Over Quayle's 'Potatoe'

By Tom Blumer | May 11, 2008 - 23:56 ET

During the 1992 presidential campaign, when incumbent Vice President Dan Quayle made a spelling mistake, the New York Times was all over it. It's clear from the Times's story that the rest of the media was also in full pursuit:

So Jay Leno has a week's worth of new Dan Quayle jokes. At a school here, everyone was quite hush-hush the day after the visiting Vice President spelled potato wrong while directing a spelling bee.

..... Reporters stood around today for hours outside of the house where 12-year-old William Figueroa lives. He has become a national celebrity for having spelled the word correctly on the blackboard, only to have Mr. Quayle, holding a flash card with the word spelled incorrectly, encourage him to add an E at the end.

On Friday, Barack Obama, as NewsBusters John Stephenson reported, told an Oregon audience that "I've been in 57 states, (with) I think one left to go."

Searches at the Times on [Obama "57 states"] and [Obama "fifty-seven states"] -- each typed as indicated -- came up with the following results:

Paper Promotes Anti-Bush Video by Pot-Dealing 'Speedway Bomber'

By Tim Graham | November 9, 2007 - 00:09 ET

The front of Thursday’s Washington Post Style section carried a report from Monica Hesse on how the toy makers at Lego were a little embarrassed that one of their "Creativity Awards" was handed to an eight-year-old who would like President Bush impeached:

That last one's winners were announced last week, and Bethesda's Kelsie Kimberlin, 8, got the nod. The judges of Lego's first annual Creativity Awards got more than they bargained for. When the third-grader is asked to describe her winning entry to Lego's Creativity Awards, her explanation -- with just a little prompting from her dad, Brett -- is on message: "I don't want kids to lose any parents in the war."

Later in the article, the youngster added: "I don't like Bush because he sends people to be killed." Hesse explained the YouTube video that Kimberlin and her father made (which the Post also placed on its website for viewing):