"We shouldn't have to be burdened with all the technicalities that come up from time to time with shrewd, smart lawyers interpreting what the laws or what the Constitution may or may not say"
About this Quote
The complaint isn’t really about “technicalities.” It’s about who gets to decide what power can do when it’s in a hurry.
Dan Quayle frames the rule of law as an annoying administrative tax: something ordinary people shouldn’t be “burdened” with, especially when “shrewd, smart lawyers” start parsing the Constitution. That phrasing does a lot of work. “Shrewd” implies cunning, even bad faith; “smart” concedes competence while casting it as elitist. The subtext is populist resentment aimed at the legal profession as a gatekeeping class, the kind that can slow a political agenda by insisting that words mean what they say and procedures matter. It’s a familiar maneuver: turn constitutional constraints into fussy tricks, then position executive action as common sense.
The irony is that constitutional government is built out of those very “technicalities” - not as decorative pedantry, but as the machinery that prevents the state from running on impulse. Quayle’s line reveals a tension at the heart of late-20th-century conservative politics: reverence for the Constitution as symbol, impatience with constitutionalism as practice. Courts, counsel, and statutory interpretation become villains not because they’re wrong, but because they’re effective at introducing friction.
Context matters: as vice president in an era of culture-war polarization and expanding federal power, Quayle was often tasked with signaling toughness and simplicity. This quote performs that role. It offers a politics of impatience, where complexity itself is suspect - and the Constitution becomes something you cite for legitimacy, not something you consult for limits.
Dan Quayle frames the rule of law as an annoying administrative tax: something ordinary people shouldn’t be “burdened” with, especially when “shrewd, smart lawyers” start parsing the Constitution. That phrasing does a lot of work. “Shrewd” implies cunning, even bad faith; “smart” concedes competence while casting it as elitist. The subtext is populist resentment aimed at the legal profession as a gatekeeping class, the kind that can slow a political agenda by insisting that words mean what they say and procedures matter. It’s a familiar maneuver: turn constitutional constraints into fussy tricks, then position executive action as common sense.
The irony is that constitutional government is built out of those very “technicalities” - not as decorative pedantry, but as the machinery that prevents the state from running on impulse. Quayle’s line reveals a tension at the heart of late-20th-century conservative politics: reverence for the Constitution as symbol, impatience with constitutionalism as practice. Courts, counsel, and statutory interpretation become villains not because they’re wrong, but because they’re effective at introducing friction.
Context matters: as vice president in an era of culture-war polarization and expanding federal power, Quayle was often tasked with signaling toughness and simplicity. This quote performs that role. It offers a politics of impatience, where complexity itself is suspect - and the Constitution becomes something you cite for legitimacy, not something you consult for limits.
Quote Details
| Topic | Justice |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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