"Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy" was a remark made during the 1988 United States vice-presidential debate by Democratic vice-presidential candidate Senator Lloyd Bentsen to Republican vice-presidential candidate Senator Dan Quayle. Jack Kennedy was a reference to John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States. Since then, the words "You're no Jack Kennedy," or some variation on Bentsen's remark, have become a part of the political lexicon as a way to deflate politicians or other individuals perceived as thinking too highly of themselves.
Read more about Senator, You're No Jack Kennedy: Context, Transcript, Aftermath, Legacy
Famous quotes containing the words jack and/or kennedy:
“I have a dream: in my dream ... Aretha Franklin, in her fabulous black-lipstick “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” outfit, leaps from her seat at Maxim’s and, shouting “Think!,” blasts Lacan, Derrida and Foucault like dishrags against the wall, then leads thousands of freed academic white slaves in a victory parade down the Champs-Elysées.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
“Where there is no vision, the people perish.”
—Bible: Hebrew Proverbs, 29:18.
President John F. Kennedy quoted this passage on the eve of his assassination in Dallas, Texas; recorded in Theodore C. Sorenson’s biography, Kennedy, Epilogue (1965)