Angry Lawyers Storm Historic
Dan Quayle Museum in Indiana
May 22, 1999 _ Swarms of angry lawyers stormed
the historic Dan Quayle Museum today in Huntington, Indiana, as two days of increasingly
hostile demonstrations finally boiled over.
 Attorneys across the country were
outraged by remarks made by Quayle, a former vice president during the first Bush
Administration, late last week during a speech in California. During the speech Quayle
blamed most of the country's problems on "the legal aristocracy" and vowed to
"restore America to its pre-lawyer purity."
Mob leaders are threatening to write lengthy, harshly worded
briefs about the treasured contents of the museum, the only known vice presidential museum
in the country. "Dan Quayle will be singing a different tune when he sees how we
deconstruct the legal basis for these golf club covers he received as a gift from the
Emperor of Japan," said one rioting attorney who asked that his name not be reported.
Quayle's measured provocation of the legal community
apparently was designed to give him a platform -- similar to his crusade against the
television sitcom "Murphy Brown" -- on which to base his run for re-election as
vice president. "It's not easy to campaign for the vice president's job," said
one knowledgeable insider. "You have to make it look like you're trying for the top
job and give up before you've pissed off the guy who's going to win."
 But others speculated that Quayle's
outburst was in fact motivated by legal problems closer to home. Reportedly, one of
Quayle's three children has expressed an interest in making a bid for the vice president
job as Texas Governor George Bush's running mate. "That
would make the most interesting combination since Dwight Eisenhower's son married Nixon's
daughter," one historian noted.
Quayle suggested in his speech that domestic unrest may be a
factor in his new crusade against lawyers. "The children's rights zealots are
encouraging children to believe they can sue their parents," he orated. "Every
Baby Boomer parent has heard it from their children at one time or another: 'I can sue
you,'" he said. "They get it from the culture."
The personable former veep appeared to secure his also-ran
status by accusing the powerful media elite of being conspirators in the lawyer-led attack
on American principles. "In fulfilling its cultural agenda, the legal aristocracy has
not worked alone," Quayle said. "It was aided by a willing and compliant news
media and an entertainment community that transmits counter-culture values."
Big-time news executives dismissed the accusation with a
snap of their powerful fingers. "The former vice president is a lawyer himself. He
fought the Vietnam War as a pr flack for the Indiana National Guard," said one news
industry executive. "If the American public wasn't addicted to sitcoms and beer
commercials he couldn't get elected dogcatcher."
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