(6 of 8)
At this point, the Quayle tale began to go awry. Bush was scheduled to take a 30-minute riverboat ride on the Natchez, and it was decided that Quayle would be anointed when the boat docked in New Orleans. There was only one problem: Bush insisted that his top aides accompany him to guarantee secrecy. That meant all the obligatory calls to G.O.P. leaders had to be postponed until later that afternoon, leaving no senior campaign aide available to brief the press on Quayle's virtues. When the problem was posed to Bush, he said decisively, and incorrectly, "We can take that hit."
Quayle's hyperactive performance at his own investiture was criticized by many as more appropriate for a game-show host than for a would-be Vice President. He bounded across the podium, waving his arms, grabbing Bush's shoulder (the Vice President recoiled) and shouting meaningless phrases like "Go get 'em!" But many Bush advisers thought that Quayle's energy made the Vice President look like a Reaganesque elder statesman in comparison. Bush agreed. The next morning he said to an aide, "Don't let anyone try to put Dan in a straitjacket or slow him down. Let him be himself."
Quayle's Wednesday press conference should have dampened the upbeat mood, but few in the Bush high command detected the warning flares. Aides were so enraptured with Quayle's energy and enthusiasm that they failed to listen carefully to his answers. Blindsided by a question on why he joined the National Guard, Quayle fell back on the advice that Bush Media Guru Roger Ailes gave the Indiana Senator during his 1986 re-election campaign: "If there is no advantage to you in a subject, don't talk about it." So instead of a full answer, Quayle spoke in fractured sound bites.
There was neither much trepidation nor preparation as Quayle was sent off on Wednesday night to make the prime-time interview rounds. Virtually the only advice given to Quayle: "Be yourself, and whatever you do, don't lie." The peripatetic Senator followed both instructions faithfully, perhaps too faithfully. Each time Quayle sat down before the cameras, he dropped another factlet about the efforts of his family and friends to ease his way into the National Guard. At times Quayle spoke with such enthusiasm about his ambition to be a Guardsman that one almost got the impression that it was a higher calling than the vice presidency.
Late Wednesday night, the Bush camp finally grasped that it was ensnared in a full-blown media crisis. At a midnight meeting, Baker decreed the strategy ( to follow during the next 20 anxious hours: total public silence. Until the staff unearthed the facts that had somehow eluded Kimmitt, they would stonewall everything. But the truth about Quayle's military record continued to be elusive. The Indiana Senator was telephoned at his hotel, but he failed to remember many details. Quayle's father was called; yes, he had tried to help his son get into the Guard. Phillippi was contacted. But the answers remained incomplete and sometimes contradictory.