The paper’s James King profiles the candidate at length. There’s a very funny graphic, by Jamie Peachey, that portrays Quayle as the 40-year-old virgin:


new_times_quayle_cover


The story, while not a puff piece, lets Quayle off the hook on a couple of issues, notably the Dirty Scottsdale tale.

Besides being a hypocrite by being a family-values Republican with a history of working for a skanky, woman-hating web site, Quayle lied about it when he was first asked.

New Times is a good paper and King is one of its typically strong reporters.

But this doesn’t wash:

[I]t turns out that Quayle didn’t lie — he just didn’t volunteer information about his association with Dirty Scottsdale.

The Politico reporter who first called Quayle didn’t ask him whether he had written for the Web site. She asked if he was involved in the founding of The Dirty, to which Quayle answered no.

The reporter’s next question was, “You had nothing to do with it?” Quayle contends he thought the reporter still was referring to the establishment of The Dirty and answered no again.

[…]

But the damage was done. The claim that he initially lied about his involvement made the front page of the New York Times.

That’s plainly total bullshit.

Here’s the original Politico passage:

“I did not have a role in founding that site,” Quayle, a lawyer who runs a small Scottsdale investment firm, told POLITICO in an interview Tuesday morning when asked whether he was one of the original contributors to the sex-themed site.

“I was not involved in the site,” he said when pressed about whether he had any role.

In other words, Quayle tried to weasel around the question by framing his first answer carefully. (Note how the reporter includes her original question.)

But then, of course, she pressed him, and he specifically said he wasn’t involved in the site, when asked if he had any role.

It’s one thing to try to lie when asked a question like that, and it’s another level of deceit to try to pretend that your lie had been successful when it plainly hadn’t. That’s what Quayle’s been doing since.

King has it entirely wrong and should correct the story. Quayle plainly lied.

I think it’s fair to beat up on King about this because he’s given Quayle a pass as well on his cheesy little family mailer in which he posed with two little girls, even though he doesn’t have kids.

And finally, Quayle is never asked about his right-wing views.

Among other things, King could have asked him about his position on abortion, and specifically to what extent he would criminalize it if he had the chance.

He could also have asked him about the astate’s medical marijuana initiative—and whether he’d ever tried it himself.