Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 2:28am

Benghazi? Benghazi?

Low information voters rejoice!  Ann Kuster (D. NH) is a congresswoman for you!  Mark Steyn, please do the honors:

First, she has no idea what “Benghazi” is.

Then, pleading in mitigation that she’s there to talk about the Middle East, she reveals that she has no idea where Benghazi is.

Finally, when her constituents helpfully point out that Benghazi is in Libya, she turns to the side and gives that pitiful look that is the single thing I most loathe about American politics – the look a floundering empty suit gives to her minder when she needs him to come and rescue her. Which the minder immediately does.

This isn’t an especially partisan point, but I’m so weary of post-modern ventriloquist’s dummies who can’t be allowed near their constituents without the protection of a phalanx of aides. In this video, the voters are well-informed, but they have a low-information Congresswoman.

Go here to National Review Online to read the rest. Ms. Kuster comes from a family prominent in New Hampshire politics, which perhaps might help explain how an obviously ill-informed doofus like herself stumbled her way into a House seat in 2012, a very good year for Democrats in the Granite State.  Alas, people like her tend to be an ever increasing percentage of Congress.  My favorite example is Hank Johnson (D.Ga.) worrying about Guam tipping over:

Vote for whoever you want to America, but when you vote for idiots the results are not pretty.

 

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Art Deco
Art Deco
Wednesday, December 11, AD 2013 9:32am

The woman is a lawyer-lobbyist whose book consisted of representing a range of state-dependent sectors (social work, education, medicine) both in transactional law practice and to the New Hampshire state legislature. My guess would be that representing the medical sector was paying the bills and that representing the social work industry was where her heart was. Foreign policy was never in her skill set and I would wager she is not interested.

Tom D
Tom D
Wednesday, December 11, AD 2013 12:23pm

To Rep Hank Johnson’s defense, I think he was making a feeble attempt at a joke. In doing so he joined Al Gore and Sarah Palin in the ranks of politicians who will be forever followed by misunderstandings.

This display by Rep Ann Kuster is of a different order of magnitude. One hopes that the people of New Hampshire will give her the time to pursue the social work she apparently so loves.

Mike Petrik
Mike Petrik
Wednesday, December 11, AD 2013 12:55pm

Tom,
You are indeed a very kind man to so characterize Johnson’s statements. I like to think of myself as kind too, but just can’t quite convince myself that you’re right.

Kyle Miller
Kyle Miller
Thursday, December 12, AD 2013 12:35am

End of video: Just put the mic down. Put it down now. LOL!

Tom D, Um yea. A joke. I think that is Biden’s excuse for everyone of his displays of stupidity. “Stand up Chuck!” And yes, Palin was right. You can see Russia from Alaska. Our acute investigative mainstream media sent real reporters to the far reaches to Alaska just to make sure. No word on an investigation into the likely hood of Guam capsizing. It could capsize any day now.

Bill Sockey
Thursday, December 12, AD 2013 9:25am

I would like to point out that Sarah Palin never made that statement, true as it may be, that you can see Russia from Alaska. It was made by a comedienne on Saturday Night Live. The low information crowd ever after believed the actress was actually Sarah Palin.

Mike Petrik
Mike Petrik
Thursday, December 12, AD 2013 10:45am

You’re right, Bill, and the same low information crowd still thinks that Dan Quayle believes that Latin Americans speak Latin.

Kyle Miller
Kyle Miller
Thursday, December 12, AD 2013 11:06am

Bill Sockey, That is incorrect. She said you could see Russia from Alaska. SNL turned her comment into “And I can see Russia from my house.” Her original statement to ABC News is “They’re our next-door neighbors, and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska,” which sounds far more intelligent than what SNL’s version. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXL86v8NoGk

Willaim P. Walsh
Willaim P. Walsh
Thursday, December 12, AD 2013 12:57pm

Representative Kuster demurred to discuss Benghazi because she did not consider it to be located in the Middle-East, the region which she was there to discuss. Her perception of mere geography is incidental to the over-arching fact that events in Libya are inextricable from any evaluation of events in the Middle-East. Foreign affairs may not be her forte but she certainly revealed a foible at this event.

Tom D
Tom D
Friday, December 13, AD 2013 10:16am

Kyle, thanks for pointing out the correct history of the Sarah Palin comment. It shows how unbelievably unhinged certain people became during the 2008 election.

I think a similar thing happened to Al Gore. I don’t think that he ever claimed to have invented the internet, but he was certainly a tech-minded politician who did sponsor legislation to further develop the internet. BTW, I consider Gore to be one of the great tragedies of American politics: a good and intelligent man who sold his soul to Planned Parenthood and then to the Clintons. His devolution from 2000 on was just the fruit of his moral errors.

I think that your introduction of Biden is a bit of a straw man argument, but I can’t disagree with your comments about him. To paraphrase Freud, sometimes a straw man really is a straw man. Biden is so off the scale it is impossible for a voter to know when to be charitable and when charity would be stupidity. Remember the Star Trek episode with the twin but opposite Kirks? Imagine the same thing happening to a politician, and you’d get Joe Biden and Spiro Agnew.

Tom D
Tom D
Friday, December 13, AD 2013 10:21am

Mike, yes, Dan Quayle was another politician who got criticized for episodes that were harmless, and some of which were possibly attempts at humor.

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