QUAYLE HUNT

At the suggestion of Echopraxia, I recently picked up Joe Queenan's 1992 meditation on the strange phenomenon of J. Danforth Quayle, then still the vice president of these here United States. The book, "Imperial Caddy: The Rise of Dan Quayle in America and the Decline and Fall of Practically Everything Else" is great read — certainly not very difficult, which is good, because it's not not terribly relevant. (I got a good-as-new copy off Amazon for less than a slice of pizza, which is also good.) In fact, it was completely irrelevant just months after its publication, thanks to the presidential election that took place later that year — if not Quayle's abortive attempts to seek the top job in 1996 and 2000.

What it lacks in relevance it makes up for in (what I suppose we can call here on the Internet) LOLosity, not to mention funny anecdotes about the dismal office of the vice presidency. And maybe it is just more relevant than I first indicated. The manner in which the media and the left rushed to depict Quayle as a dunce when he first rose to prominence while the right treated him skeptically sounds remarkably like how George W. Bush was treated during his first run for office and early months in the White House. And then after that early period, the media rushed to argue that someone so powerful couldn't actually be a dolt, the left decided he was actually a threat to the country, and the right decided he was all right after all. Remind you of anbody?

Anyway, in a late chapter, he describes the then-booming market in irreverent Dan Quayle collectibles, including wristwatches. He writes:

Kay Healy, who sells the upscale Dan Quayle watches, expects to have no trouble unloading the 300 items she has already produced. She notes that Spiro Agnew watches, which ran $29 when Agnew was in office, are now worth ten times that price.

Because the Agnew watches were crude and cheap -- not unlike the man who inspired them -- and were turned out in the thousands, there are still plenty of them around, holding down their long-term value as collectibles. Healy, who is in the political collectibles business, says that's why her watches are deliberately designed as a limited-edition collector's item (she is setting some aside for herself, convinced that their value would skyrocket should Quayle ever become president.)

So how are Dan Quayle wristwatches doing these days? Well... if eBay or Froogle are to be believed, they are either so valuable as to be not available for purchase or, possibly, so worthless as to be not available for purchase.

As for Agnew watches, well, you can still take your pick (and the easy availability over the Internet, if not his reduced notoriety, seems to have brought the price down plenty). Gore watches? They hardly exist. I remember Clinton watches being advertised on television during the 1990s — by the American Spectator, I think — and indeed they're still quite popular as well. Looking for a Bush watch? There's a whole galaxy out there — and most of them seem to be reverential.

I'm tempted to ask, why on Earth would anybody buy a watch with a politician on it, whether it was someone you loved or hated. Tempted. I'd even like to ask what it would say about someone who would create a watch promoting a White House run by Laura Bush, or Jeb Bush. Like to. After all, I can guarantee you right now neither will be at any straw polls in Iowa come spring 2007. Instead, what I really have to know is:

What does it say about somebody who buys or creates a watch promoting a 2008 presidential run by... George W. Bush?

UPDATE — And then, of course, this goes up nearly at the same time news is breaking around the world — via the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, of all places — that Vice President Dick Cheney has become the second sitting veep to shoot a man since Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton, while quail hunting (Cheney, not Burr). I should really have my own 900 number.

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posted by WWB at 6:33 PM |