Good God, is it really that bad?

Either Monday or Tuesday I usually get to the “Wait, Wait…” podcast on my iPod. Well, it’s late Monday evening and I still haven’t listened… which is probably a good thing. I’m not sure I could have trusted myself to have heard this correctly:

(White House Press Secretary, Dana Perino on NPR)
Salon.com Politics | “Oh, Dana”:

Appearing on NPR’s “Wait, Wait … Don’t Tell Me” over the weekend, Perino said she “panicked” when she got the Cuban missile crisis question because she wasn’t exactly sure what the Cuban missile crisis was. “I really know nothing about the Cuban missile crisis,” Perino said. “It had to do with Cuba and missiles, I’m pretty sure.”

I think I’d have blown a gasket if I’d heard it live. It’s bad enough reading about it.

Please, throw me a bone. Tell me the Cold War wasn’t that long ago… that smart people still know what the Cuban Missle Crisis was, and there are a few of them left in government.

Along with the Berlin Wall being put up/torn down, I thought the Cuban Missile Crisis was a defining moment of the Cold War. You know, that little thing that shaped international politics in the western hemisphere for, like, the second half of the last century. I guess I would have thought a college educated person (with a minor in Political Science) would have known a little about it.

I’ve read two articles on the NPR appearance (the Salon link, and a blog post on the NYT), and I’m still having trouble wrapping my mind around it. Maybe it’s just shock. I’ve only had twenty minutes to digest this. Maybe I’ll feel better in the morning.