Perino: I Didn't Know What The Cuban Missile Crisis Was

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.

Read entire story here.

Read more about Dana Perino from HuffPolitics reporter Jason Linkins.

Comments

[KOisGod]

Hey Dana - you dumb cluck.

This will help -

http://www.reel.com/movie.asp?MID=131084&buy=closed&Tab=reviews&CID=13#tabs

[ripples]

Whats really amazing is that Bush was able find someone even dumber then himself..m­aybe we have been a little too harsh regarding his intellect

[Rachel36]

I'll dig down in my pocket and send her a copy of "The Missles in October". Not the 2000 version, the real gritty, made-for-television dramatization with William DeVance as JFK and Martin Sheen as RFK.

[ScorchedEarth]

Didn't know what the Cuban Missle Crisis was?!?!?!?

That is friggin pathetic.

[loki]

Wow, Chris Mathews on Hardball just bashed her and the Bush administration for not knowing history and repeating mistakes of the British and French in Iraq, as well as other past mistakes from American history.

[amorosotom]

So I was a sophomore at Harvard at the time and the general feeling was one of excitement. Not so much as fear, as "Oh,boy this is going to be some blast." Too young to fear the potential nuclear holocaust. But I do remember that some of the students were questioning why do we have missiles some 50 miles from the Soviet Union located in Turkey. And there it was. The argument still goes on. We and Israel have nuclear weapons but we are ready to destroy Iran for having them. Why can't the world government, the United Nations, propose everyone destroy their nuclear weapons? A nuclear weapons-free planet. I guess that's too much of a dream. Soon after the Missle Crisis, the U.S. would drift into the senseless slaughter in Vietnam and the glorification of our military forces. So it is today. Everyone salutes our military force and no one says, Jesus, wouldn't it be great if we could end all armies of the world. Guess it isn't going to happen when the military-industrial complex controls the media. Sad really.

[WhimseyKate]

I heard her on "Wait, Wait..." and wondered why she would be foolish enough to go on such a show - the same way I wonder at Reps. who go on "Real Time with Bill Maher" and "The Daily Show". However, when I heard her remark that she didn't know what the Cuban Missile Crisis was, I was absolutely gobsmacked that anyone that stupid could be a spokeswoman for any organization, much less the POTUS (president of the U.S.) That he isn't embarrassed by her utter stupidity speaks volumes about his utter stupidity, but then, we've known about that since, say, January 2000. To paraphrase Dickens' Tiny Tim God help us, every one.

[Ginzaman]

Maybe this is kind of like the head of the Fed Reserve saying, what's an interest rate?

[Troubledwawa]

Dana Perino: "Oh yeah, that's it... It's the Cubans making missles, not the Iranians".­..

[Xav7]

This is a rich one! Now I see why this woman was the featured "Idiot" on Spindrain.com 's oped page!
HOW can one represent the White House -- a sitting president -- and not know of such a huge event in our nation's history?!?
Madness.
We are slowly deteriorating into 3rd world status thanks to this administration.

(sure... I overstate a bit -- Poetic license. ;)

[fact finder]

She meant what Cuban Penis problem./ I can't find one.

[KoolBreez]

Okay, I read the article. I have one question. Who was Kennedy?

[humuhumunukunukuapuaa]

In her defense, please remember she is paid to me a mouth-piece, not to actually know things. (Just like her boss.)

[BUSHsurvivor]

Big deal, Perino is not there for her smarts or lack there of, she there to spin and lie! She's doing a heckuva job!

[desertdweller]

Those of us that are old enough to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis remember the tension and finally the relief when the situation was de-fused through high-level diplomacy. Less familar to the vast majority of Americans, and known, if at all, to some of those that work in Government and the Defense sector, is how close to the brink of war Ronnie Raygun and his poker partner Margaret Thatcher brought the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Their less-than-subtle threats of attack in an attempt to de-stabilize
the Soviet Union, resulted in Soviet forces to be place on high alert and increased patrolling of Soviet Bear bombers along the East Coast of the U.S. and in the North Atlantic. The massing of Soviet tank divisions to the east of the Fulda gap was not a drill. Almost the entire Soviet ballistic submarine Atlantic fleet left its ports in the Baltic and Barents Seas. This was the real thing. Don't believe me - visit the Museum of the History of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn.


Mikhail Gorbachev receives little credit for his even-handedness in not being drawn into Raygun's trap. Maybe Raygun achieved his ultimate objectives, but he almost cost us the farm and the destruction of central Europe in the process.