[NYTr] White House Mouthpiece Perino Clueless on Cuban Missile Crisis
 
Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2007 19:44:26 -0600 (CST)

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
Pam's House Blend - Dec 11, 2007
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=92A31119EF02D0040B0E65A01F96CBE0?diaryId=3891

White House press secretary clueless about the Cuban Missile Crisis

by pam

Dana Perino, the mouthpiece for the Gentleman's C Bush Administration,
was flummoxed at a press briefing when a reporter made a reference to
the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. She probably revealed more about the
qualifications for positions in the Bush White House than they would
have preferred when she disclosed the incident on NPR's quizshow "Wait,
Wait... Don't Tell Me."

    "I was panicked a bit because I really don't know about . . . the
Cuban Missile Crisis...it had to do with Cuba and missiles, I'm pretty
sure...I came home and I asked my husband. I said, 'Wasn't that like
the Bay of Pigs thing?' And he said, 'Oh, Dana.' "

The WaPo piece with this tidbit [see below] notes that Perino is 35
years old "born about a decade after the 1962 U.S.-Soviet nuclear
showdown." And that means what -- she's only responsible for knowing
events that occurred during her lifetime?

Well, let's take a look at Perino's education:

    She attended Ponderosa High School in Parker, Colorado, a suburb of
Denver.[1] Perino graduated from the University of Southern Colorado
(now known as Colorado State University-Pueblo) in 1994 with a
bachelor's degree in mass communications and minors in both political
science and Spanish.

So the Cuban Missile Crisis wasn't on the list of topics covered in
history classes at Ponderosa High? She also served on the debate team
at the University of Southern Colorado. Makes you wonder...which
situation is worse -- that the school system failed Perino so badly, or
that she skated through and didn't absorb relevant information someone
in her position should be aware of?

Hat tip, FDL

                                ***

excerpted from "Bush Knows Well the Hazards of the Trail," 
by Peter Baker
The Washington Post - Dec 10, 2007
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/09/AR2007120901336.html

[...]

Perino's 'Missile Crisis' Confession

Still looking for that last-minute Christmas gift for White House press
secretary Dana Perino? May we recommend a gift certificate for the
forthcoming book on the Cuban Missile Crisis by our colleague Michael
Dobbs, "One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the
Brink of Nuclear War," due out next summer?

Appearing on National Public Radio's light-hearted quiz show "Wait,
Wait . . . Don't Tell Me," which aired over the weekend, Perino got
into the spirit of things and told a story about herself that she had
previously shared only in private: During a White House briefing, a
reporter referred to the Cuban Missile Crisis -- and she didn't know
what it was.

"I was panicked a bit because I really don't know about . . . the Cuban
Missile Crisis," said Perino, who at 35 was born about a decade after
the 1962 U.S.-Soviet nuclear showdown. "It had to do with Cuba and
missiles, I'm pretty sure."

So she consulted her best source. "I came home and I asked my husband,"
she recalled. "I said, 'Wasn't that like the Bay of Pigs thing?' And he
said, 'Oh, Dana.' "

[...]

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