WASHINGTON, D.C.  The five living ex-Vice Presidents of the United States stood together yesterday at a press conference on the steps of the Blair House, the official residence of the Vice President, in solidarity with Joe Biden, current holder of the office, under fire for referring to the smallest state in the union as “Road Island.”

“Off to Pencilvania with my Hooked on Phonics tapes!”

“From the rockbound coasts of Knew Hampshire, to the sunny shores of Caulifornia, Americans know what’s important in a Vice President isn’t his grade in spelling,” the group said in a press release handed out to reporters.  “We always had more important things to think about,” said J. Danforth Quayle, “like whether some nut was going to throw a tomatoe at us.”

The Vice Presidency has historically attracted orthographically-challenged contenders according to vicepresidents.com, a website devoted to all things vice-presidential whose motto is “Proud to be in the shadow!”  “Harry Truman was a farm boy turned autodidact who was a terrible speller,” according to Vice Presidential scholar Norman van Alostine.  “Once he got out from behind that Missouri mule he drove Bess everywhere in his autodidact.”

Garner with Will Rogers:  “What’s in the bucket?”

John Nance Garner, the thirty-second vice president, famously said “Being vice president isn’t worth a bucket of warm spit,” misspelling the word “piss.”  “Biden has no excuse,” noted spelling bee coach Mark Nostrand.  “Garner didn’t have spell check.”

Quayle:  “There’s an ‘e’ at the end of my name, and there’s an ‘e’ at the end of potatoe.”

Quayle, who was derided by the press for misspelling “potato” while in office, said he didn’t begrudge Biden the kid-glove treatment he’s received from the press for his error.  “He sent me a very nice email,” Quayle said, “telling me not to worry about liberal Medea buy ass.”