[fable]

I give you the king of foot-in-mouth blunders, and the one-time vice president of the United States, Dan Quayle:

"We should develop anti-satellite weapons because we could not have prevailed without them in `Red Storm Rising'." -Reported in (Newsweek, 9/88)

"A very positive message." - Quayle after listening to a sermon in which a Georgia minister condemned homosexuality as `satanic'. (Newsweek, 11/92)

"Target prices? How that works? I know quite a bit about farm policy. I come from Indiana, which is a farm state. Deficiency payments -- which are the key -- that is what gets money into the farmer's hands. We got loan, uh, rates, we got target, uh, prices, uh, I have worked very closely with my senior colleague, Richard Lugar, making sure that the farmers of Indiana are taken care of." - (Quayle on being asked to define the term `target prices'. Quayle's press secretary then cut short the press conference, after two minutes and 30 seconds.)

"You all look like happy campers to me. Happy campers you are, happy campers you have been, and, as far as I am concerned, happy campers you will always be." (Trip to Samoa, 7/92)

"Our future competitiveness demands that true environmentalists and responsible leaders not allow the well-intentioned concerns of the American public to be manipulated and exploited as a means to re-establish unnecessary regulatory, economic and social controls."