Former Vice President Dan Quayle Calls Attacks Against His Son, Ben Quayle, 'Ugly' And 'Slanderous'

Former Vice President Dan Quayle Calls Attacks Against His Son, Ben Quayle, 'Ugly' And 'Slanderous'

Opponents of Ben Quayle, Republican candidate for Arizona's 3rd Congressional District, watch out, he just went there! (He called mommy and daddy.)

Quayle has been consistently plagued by reports that he may have been part of the content creation team behind scandalous gossip website TheDirty.com. Charges that he had actually written salacious comments for the site under the pseudonym "Brock Landers," the name of a fictional porn star in the movie "Boogie Nights," have now made it into an 11th hour attack ad released by opponent Steve Moak over the weekend, a spot that attributes words written by "Landers" directly to Quayle. Quayle has repeatedly rejected any connection to the postings, and now he's getting reinforcement from his parents.

"With the recent turn of events, I cannot in good conscience remain silent," Ben Quayle's father, former Vice President Dan Quayle wrote in an email, Politico reports.

"I took my fair share of outrageous slams in politics but Steve Moak's vicious smear against my son is over the top and unprecedented," Quayle continued. "I have never in my 35 years of politics seen such an ugly, slanderous assault in the closing days of a campaign against a fellow Republican."

Quayle goes on to explain that his son's connection to the "Dirty" chain of websites was limited to a few introductory remarks made on "Dirty Scottsdale," a precursor to TheDirty.com that has since been retired.

"Ben made a satirical fictional posting on a blog three or four years ago commenting on night life in Scottsdale. That blog no longer exists. Ben had absolutely nothing to do with the vulgar website mentioned in the ad created and aired by Steve Moak," the elder Quayle wrote.

And if dad's word isn't good enough, Quayle's mom, Marilyn Quayle, drafted her own email defending her son.

Politico provides the text:

"In a particularly despicable commercial...[Moak] takes a quote from fictional satire and attributes it as a serious life philosophy of Ben's," she wrote. "He also wrongly asserts that Ben has written for a particularly vulgar website. In the 35 years that I have been involved in Republican politics I have never seen a Republican try to personally destroy another Republican in this way."

Here are some more things you should know about Ben Quayle:

Top 10 Things You Should Know About Ben Quayle

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