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Ben Quayle, son of former U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle and a candidate for Congress, has acknowledged posting on the DirtyScottsdale.com Web site.

Quayle told KPNX-TV in Phoenix that he wanted "to drive traffic to the site" when he posted comments, Politico reports. The founder of the site, Nik Richie, says Quayle used the name Brock Landers, adopted from a porn star in the movie "Boogie Nights," which Quayle denies.

Richie, whose legal name is Hooman Karamian, told Politico that Quayle helped him incorporate the site, now part of a national gossip site, TheDirty.com. Quayle, after denying that to Politico, admitted to Phoenix TV reporters that he did bring Karamian-Richie together with an intellectual property lawyer at the firm where he worked.

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Ben is a 33 year-old attorney who has a resume like most every person who went to good schools and has less than 10 years of working experience: he could be a future star, or he could be a lightweight. But his career to date has been undistinguished (and even nonexistent with respect to public policy and politics) save for who his father is.

He says he’s a conservative, his dad is a conservative, and he’s certainly not the first child to capitalize on his pop’s name and connections to advance in this world. What could be the harm in Ben Quayle being the GOP nominee this fall?

For starters, safe GOP Districts should be used to cultivate national conservative leaders. Both Kyl and Shadegg were distinguished conservative rising stars at the time they each won their highly-contested primaries for that district. They have both gone on to great public service in advancing conservative principles, most notably Kyl on national security issues and Shadegg on health care. There is no evidence in Ben’s career to date that he is on track to be a future Kyl or Shadegg. We simply do not have enough conservative stars in Washington to risk “wasting” a seat.

Second, safe Republican districts should not distract a scintilla of energy or focus from the GOP’s push to win Democratic seats and retake the House. If Ben is the nominee, alone among the top tier of GOP candidates in that district, the race suddenly would be injected with some level of risk in what would otherwise be a GOP lock this fall, given the mood of the nation and the electoral profile of the district’s voters.

Everyone knows Ben is only in the top tier in this race because his father was Vice President and has raised him a million dollars. (Dad, not Ben, even announced Ben’s candidacy on Fox News!) To paraphrase Dan Quayle, speaking about then-Governor George W. Bush during Quayle’s short-lived campaign for the White House in 1999: ”We don’t need another [lawmaker] who needs on-the-job training…. The [office] is not to be inherited.”

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