The National Spelling Bee Competition Between President Obama and Vice President Quayle

Who would win the spelling bee? President Obama who can’t spell “Respect” or Vice President Quayle who supposedly misspelt “potato?” President Obama introduced Aretha Franklin with the Women of Soul at the White House three days ago. He said “when Aretha Franklin first told us what R S P E C T meant to her.” The media treated it as a “laughable moment.” We don’t know if the President audibled, misread TOTUS, or TOTUS had it wrong. The President made a mistake. Vice President Quayle was on a 1992 photo op, conducting a spelling bee in a sixth grade class at Munoz Rivera Elementary School in Trenton, New Jersey. The Vice President was handed a flash card prepared by a teacher. It spelt potato with an “e”, “potatoe.” William Figueroa, the student, spelt potato without the “e.” The Vice President glanced at the flash card and corrected William’s spelling. The media treated it as a defining moment, echoing for months what the young Mr. Figueroa said: “It shows the rumors about the Vice President are true – that’s he an idiot.” The mainstream media slimed the Vice President as a dunce, eventhough potatoe is an accepted spelling of the word. Indeed, the New York Times is reported to have used potatoe as recently as 1988. Mr. Figueroa delivered the Pledge of Allegiance at the 1992 Democratic National Convention. The media followed up in 2000 with depicting Governor Sarah Palin as a dolt. If only they treated the current Vice President, Joe Biden, with the same elitist disdain. The number of Biden quaffs is seemingly infinite, but for our purposes all we need to know is that he said J O B S is a three letter word. We all make mistakes. Spelling can be a challenge. Mispronunciations are common. Such as President Obama’s “corpesmen.” Misstatements occur in the heat of a long campaign. My blogs are replete with typos and misspelts because of limited tying ability. President Obama would win the National Spelling Bee before it began, whether his opponent were Vice President Quayle, either President Bush, or either Clinton because the mainstream media would have anointed him the winner in advance. Therein lies the national disgrace – the blatant double standard by the media. If Dan Quayle said he had been in all 57 states with one or two left, or praise the Ohio State Buckeyes while campaigning in Michigan, the media would have crucified him. My prediction is that the former Vice President would handily defeat the President in a real spelling bee in only a few rounds.