Perino doesn't know what Cuban Missle Crisis was

[Steve Thomas]

From The Raw Story:

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/White_House_...s_she_1210.html

Appearing on National Public Radio's quiz show, "Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me," this weekend, (White House Press Spokesperson Dana) Perino admitted a story she'd previously only shared in private: When a reporter asked her a question during a White House briefing in which he referred to the Cuban Missile Crisis -- 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."

The exchange was first noted in the Washington Post.

"I came home and I asked my husband," she said on air. "I said, 'Wasn't that like the Bay of Pigs thing?' And he said, 'Oh, Dana.' "

FULL AUDIO CLIP CAN BE HEARD AT THIS LINK

http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rund...;view=storyview

Steve Thomas

[Terry Adams]

'Wasn't that like the Bay of Pigs thing?"

Well. she did quote Nixon correctly. Shouldn't she get points for that.

Terry

[J. Raymond Carroll]

From The Raw Story:

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/White_House_...s_she_1210.html

Appearing on National Public Radio's quiz show, "Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me," this weekend, (White House Press Spokesperson Dana) Perino admitted a story she'd previously only shared in private: When a reporter asked her a question during a White House briefing in which he referred to the Cuban Missile Crisis -- she didn't know what it was.

Steve Thomas

ONE MINUTE TO MIDNIGHT

Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War.

By Michael Dobbs.

Illustrated. 426 pp. Alfred. A. Knopf. $28.95.

It is hard to read this book without thinking about what would have happened if the current administration had faced such a situation — real weapons of mass destruction only 90 miles from Florida; the Pentagon urging “surgical” air attacks followed by an invasion; threatening letters from the leader of a real superpower and senators calling the president “weak” just weeks before a midterm Congressional election.

Life does not offer us a chance to play out alternative history, but it is not unreasonable to assume that the team that invaded Iraq would have attacked Cuba. And if Dobbs is right, Cuba and the Soviet Union would have fought back, perhaps launching some of the missiles already in place. One can only conclude that our nation was extremely fortunate to have had John F. Kennedy as president in October 1962. Like all presidents, he made his share of mistakes, but when the stakes were the highest imaginable, he rose to the occasion like no other president in the last 60 years — defining his goal clearly and then, against the demands of hawks within his administration, searching skillfully for a peaceful way to achieve it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/books/re....html?ref=books