Two fun and disturbing (but oh-so-unfunny) stories from last week:
1. Bush administration spokesperson, Dana Perino, doesn't know the difference between missiles because she's just a perty lady - and, duh, men know about missiles through osmosis...
Some of the terms I just don’t know, I haven’t grown up knowing. The type of missiles that are out there: patriots and scuds and cruise missiles and tomahawk missiles. And I think that men just by osmosis understand all of these things, and they’re things that I really have to work at — to know the difference between a carrier and a destroyer, and what it means when one of those is being launched to a certain area.
Jezebel covered this well, even included a lesson for Ms. Perino to better understand missiles. With a shopper's guide soon to come (hopefully in pink, with feathers and lace maybe?)
We laugh (and it is certainly more than a bit ridiculous that the Administration's spokesperson is confused about her weapons of mass destruction) but I do get what she's talking about. She probably grew up playing with dolls and make-up while her male peers played "launch the missile." Although i realize this is an exaggeration, i think it definitely speaks to socialization and the damage caused by engendering our children from such a young age.
Apparently she also doesn't know what the Cuban Missile Crisis is?
2. Although i'm a bit late on this, it's rather important to include... McCain confuses Shiites (Iran) and Sunnis (al-Qaeda)
I would hope that the Republican presidential nominee (who is currently a senator and as such, has some legislative power), would know the difference between the two. Not to mention that McCain has made his knowledge and experience of the Iraq war a vital part of his campaign.
I can't decide whether this demonstrates lack of knowledge on his part (probably) or even worse, the attitude that "a terrorist is a terrorist is a terrorist," resulting in only one answer to terrorism: War. (Remember McCain's musical number "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran"?)
Jed asks, "when John McCain goes to war, would he do it against the right people?"
...Or maybe that's how we ended up fighting a war with Iraq in the first place?
But really though? REALLY?! These people are our elected officials. One is a spokesperson for the current administration and one may be our future president... People, we need to do better than this... we simply NEED TO.
