Wonkette
White House Press Secretary Dana Perino might not be a liar after all! All those times when she says “I don’t know” and “We’re still gathering the facts” could be 100% accurate, because she actually doesn’t know jackshit about the world around her. Perino appeared on NPR’s jolly Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me program this weekend and stupidly told the world a story best kept private: She has no goddamn clue what the Cuban Missile Crisis was.
Perino told NPR’s erudite audience that one time, when a reporter mentioned the Cuban Missile Crisis, she couldn’t tell that important geopolitical event from a Bacardi Mojito:
“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.’”
Awww, Dana no smarty-like! Hear that reporters? Be nice to this dumb servant of icy death. And next time you ask her about the Iran NIE, keep in mind that she probably doesn’t know what Iran is.
Comments
So? You don't have to be smart or know your history to get a job at the Bush White House.
This just makes her so much more desireable.
Are you fucking serious? Jeeezuss...
And the poor little Bush clan wonders why the hell the rest of the world hates the administration...
What. Ever...
I now see why she lost the casting call for Mrs. Coulter.
She is everything one could hope for from the Colorado school system.
Wow, they really did hire a spokesmodel.
She's still smarter than her boss.
'Let me ask my husband' is neo-con foreplay. Being stunningly unqualified is the only way you could do that job. That way, you're not exactly lying, you just don't know.
Sadly, the poor sap who called in to the show ended up with Karl Rove rather than Carl Kastel on his answering machine.
I wish I could say I was surprised and aghast at such incompetence....
But alas, there is no action, or statement stupid enough from the administration to shock me any more.
Look on the bright side, no one got killed on account of this one.
The technical term is:
Stupid Fucking Piece of Shit
Her real ambition is to have sex with dead soldiers. She is what the Bush Administration is all about.
Let the hate-fucking begin.
Considering that Dick Cheney et al. probably know far too much about the Cuban Missile Crisis, this comes as something of a relief.
she came home and asked her ENGLISH husband about american history. geesh...
please god, don't let this ignorant fucktard reproduce.
"I said, 'Wasn't that like the Bay of Pigs thing?' And he said, 'Oh, Dana. Stick to what you know. *unzips pants*"
You would think that reading "Legacy of Ashes" (the history of the CIA) would be required reading for any White House press secretary (and no, this is not a plug... the book is really good at explaining how the hell we got to where we are today)
I'd still hit it...
the White House Press Secretary really should have given her some talking points so that she wouldn...oh.
@Nabisco: haha!
Give her some credit. She was able to narrow it down to the country and the weapons. You go, girl.
They'll be no Jeopardy invitations for the lovely, but dumb as a box of hammers, Dana.
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."
Yeah, and didn't the Roman Empire have something to do with Italians?
And yet, this is the best the Bush Administration came up with! Hurray! Ponies for all!
So maybe her High School Thang was Advanced Calculus and AP Physics and Chemistry. Don't be whacking on her like she's a dumb blonde without, like, the transcripts.
"I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uhmmm, some people out there in our nation don't have maps and uh, I believe that our, I, education like such as uh, South Africa, and uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, uhhh, our education over here in the US should help the US, uh, should help South Africa, it should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future, for us."
That explains it...
...said Perino, who at 35 was born about a decade after the 1962 U.S.-Soviet nuclear showdown.
I fucking LOVE that line. Hilarious. Don't ever ask me about shit that happened before May 1978.
@zyxkonrad:
Only if her degree was in somethings likes Engineering (but most of my fellow enjinears ain't too goods with their histories/non maths shit either.) But it ain't.
Her degree is in the not so math/science intensive Mass Communications and minor in Poly Sci (the typical degrees that football players get.)
You' re doing a heck of a job, Dana!
and I can't wait to hear her say, "....and one time in band camp........."
Oh yeah? Well Ms. Perino knows all about Hungary. Her dog Henry is a Vizsla, A Hungarian Pointer. Need a few pointers on Hungary? She's your gal.
P.S.: Henry is a good dog.
When did Paris Hilton become the White House spokesmodel? Maybe next time she can't answer a question, she'll just flash her crotch.
Yes, Scott McClennen and Ari Fleischer set such high standards that I am truly surprised by Dana's ignorance.
@Jonathan_Fisk: Neo-Con foreplay is a scary concept.
I can't spell V-W,
But I drive a Porsche,
'Cause I'm a blond.
@Botswana Meat Commission FC: Actually, it's Bushie creationism, the belief that the world started on the day you were born.
I don't know a thing about World War II, except I assume it was about a world and the number 2? Maybe a war between 2 worlds? I'd better ask my husband.
I was born 15 years after it ended so I can't be expected to know about it.
@DanofromRaleigh:
Yeah, didn't like 99.99% of human history happen before Dana was born? This is obviously no excuse for not know about the Cuban Missile Crisis. What a dip shit. I still tap that though.
@donocaster:
Opps, I met "knowing".
Fox News is in your Future.
Blonde - check
Vacuous - check
That's about it.
Is Dana as stupid or more stupid than a bag of hammers?
I think we need to take a poll. Someone here know how to do that?
From the NPR Transcript:
"I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don't have maps, and, uh, I believe that our education like such as in Cuba and, uh, the Iraq everywhere like, such as and I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., er, should help Cuba and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future for our children."
Cara Dana Perino, a Cuban missile is something that would make your Bay of Pigs wider than the Gulf of Mexico.
Damned cancer...you know Tony Snow would know this schizz.
But seriously, although I know the Cuban missile crisis, how much do people know about the ins and outs of history before they were born? I don't know shit about the presidential candidates that lost ten years before I was born.
ITT people who are jealous of her job.
Someone else already said it, but the dumber she is, the hotter she is.
I'd invade her Bay of Pigs anytime. (Or is that what Portia does to Ellen?)
Didn't she train her dog to fetch a flip-flop when she mentioned John Kerry? She has all the qualifications Team Bush needs.
The 3-ring binder the White House keeps on U.S. history (all one-page, bulleted memos) must've been missing the memo on JFK.
From her Wiki entry:
"Perino met her English husband Peter McMahon, 18 years her senior and a sales and marketing director for medical products, whom Bush calls "The Englishman;""
Ooo, nice one, boss.
NPR tricked her with a racially-biased question about some Irish dude who was like the President before she was even born. Whatever.
This fully explains why this entire Administration has learned nothing from history, b/c they don't know anything that happened before they graduated college. I'd love to bend her over the podium though and tell her all about it from behind though! When do we finally get to hear some sex scandal details about someone other than a 75 year old white dude?
She also missed 2 out of 3 questions about Rankin/Bass's Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. She must hate Christmas.
the new gracie allen. instead of burns and allen,we could have bush and perino; if they could read or remember lines.
@amaduli: Be realistic. Most Americans don't know shit about the presidential candidates who lost in 2004.
On the other hand, I work with a whole bunch of people and I'd classify about half of them as at or below average intelligence and education, and they all seem to be better informed on issues of foreign policy current and historical than anyone in this administration. Besides Dick Cheney, who is probably directly responsible for most of those historical (and current!) foreign policy disasters.
What the hell is she doing on an asinine game show anyway? It should take her entire damned time to interpret the Delphic mumblings of the Bush administration, clear as chop suey as they are.
TGY, All the World's a Stage Set
@FreshCliches: Now you've gone and made me cry tears of rage and frustration again. First time since I started the Lexapro two years ago; before then it was almost daily, beginning about 10:30 or 11:00 pm on December 12, 2000.
The blond deathbot. Rovean genius. Too stupid to know the Truth, so unable to lie. The bastards!
Hey, didn't she start out as one of those "Deal Or No Deal" girls?
Hey Dana. There is actually a movie about the Cuban missle crisis, so you don't have to find your way to the library and all. A word of warning -- there's a lot of Democrats in it and they do a really good job preventing a thermonuclear exchange between the Soviet Union and the United States.
Ooops, too many big words. They did a really good job stopping these bad guys from, like, setting off these really, really big bombs over Washington and stuff and like, you know, ruining the environment and wasting a whole bunch of people.
@ManchuCandidate:
Well, Mr. Injinear...back when Ms. P. was in kindergarten, I was a TA, teaching 'Murken History at an Enormous State University. And here is the funny thing: my best students were almost always journalism students and engineering students.
Funny thing, that.
You know that when Perino resigns to "spend more time with [her] History books" the administration is going to hire a 6 year old orphan girl to be their spokesperson. And her eyes will go all watery and her lips will start to tremble any time anyone asks her a difficult question. So in the end the press will just ask her to name her favorite zoo animal and whther she like pizza more than mac 'n cheese.
@Truculent:
The Democrat Party doing a good job? You must be a revisionist historian.
Proving yet again, that in Washington, it isn't what you know, it is WHO you know.
@TGY:
There's nothing asinine about "Wait, Wait… Don't Tell Me". That show covers more current events that the evening news.
Also, is anyone really surprised? I mean, does Bush know any more about the Cuban Missile Crisis than Dana Perino does?
Oh, where those four fingers have been!
@decoitous: No, it's not what you know, it's who you blow.
@Nabisco: I've been trying to get Carl on my answering machine FOREVER.
I can't believe she admitted to being that uninformed, especially on NPR. Now, if she had been on Fox & Friends, the hosts wouldn't have known, either. "Did it have to do with that Cuban kid in Florida?"
And here I was thinking the Cuban missile crisis had something to do with Bill Clinton and cigars???
With Dana Perino, and myself, this rule applies: With a face like this, we don't need to know anything, baby.
Damn. Even after nearly nearly EIGHT years of these people, I guess I still harbored some clearly misplaced hopes (damn you, Aaron Sorkin, with that Ainsely character) that the people who serve in the White House, regardless of party, would be well versed enough in history to know about, oh, I don't know, one of most seminal events of the Cold War.... You know, the one where we kinda almost nuked Cuba and could gotten, you know, nuked a little in return, which would have been, like bad.
I weep for my fellow blondes born after 1962, that we will be tainted by such ignorance. But I will offer Dana a remedial tutorial in modern American history. I'll even do flashcards. And speak slowly. With small words.
She's better than McClellan, who would just sweat and fart before blurting out some non sequitur, like an easily cowed Flounder in Animal House. In fact, she's kind of like an Emily Procter whose eyes are aligned.
Ironically, if Dana were alive during the Bay of Pigs, JFK would have banged her.
I want to form a punk band with a chick singer and call it "Marisleysis and the Miami Relatives."
@FMIKEA: it's whom you blow
To anyone who would hit that: Please form a group and run a train in her mouth until January.
What did you expect from a glorified ventriloquist dummy? I'm sure the only job qualification for her was along the lines of: 'shee shure gots a purty mouth!'
She didn't know about the Cuba because she didn't have access to maps such as the educational system such as...
FMIKEA: The coffee that flew out of my mouth actually busted the glass on my monitor, dude. That was beautiful and I think that that is important, such as.
Any guesses as to when she would like to spend more time with her family? I mean, damn, she's had a bad week.
@amaduli: Aside from the money, I don't know any sane person that would want this job, which seems to involve constant lying while constantly being called on the bullshit yo