Melissa’s Soapbox

How Hillary gets this …

“I have to say, you know, my leading opponent the other day said that he thought the Republicans had better ideas than Democrats the last ten to fifteen years.”

… from this …

… is hard to comprehend.  As if that’s not sleazy enough, Bill chimes in:

“Her principal opponent said that since 1992, the Republicans have had all the good ideas.  It goes along with their plan to ask Republicans to become Democrats for a day and caucus with you tomorrow, and then go back and become Republicans so they can participate in the Republican primary.  I’m not making this up, folks.”

Hmm, not making this up, eh?

Factcheck.org disagrees with Billary …

We can’t speak to how things “came across” to Clinton, but we’ve listened to the entire interview and to our ears, it’s just flatly false that Obama said he “really liked the ideas of the Republicans.”  Clinton is referring to what Obama told the editorial board of the Reno Gazette-Journal.  There’s a difference between praising someone for having ideas and praising the idea itself.  Obama is doing the former – and just as clearly not doing the latter.  He says the GOP approach has “played itself out,” for example.

Of course, Obama spokesperson, Bill Burton, explains the underlying issue:

“It’s hard to take Hillary Clinton’s latest attack seriously when she’s the one who supported George Bush’s war in Iraq, the most damaging Republican idea of our generation.  While others were triangulating and poll-testing their positions, Senator Obama has been fighting for progressive ideals for over two decades.”

Andy and I have been in Los Angeles since September waiting out hurricane season in the Pacific Ocean.  Although we miss the boat and are anxious to proceed on our adventure, we’ve had a fantastic time spending the holidays stateside and taking a little hiatus from our sabbatical.  Astrid’s house in Glendale is fantastically homey, and we still encounter wildlife from time to time.

The geniuses at Slate provided this clever and hysterical rendition of Hillary as the over-achieving, vindictive, manipulative, and generally wacko Tracy Flick (played by Reese Witherspoon) from the movie Election (what a great movie).

I recently ran across the results from a survey commissioned in January of 2006 by the National Geographic Society studying the geographic knowledge of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24.  Highlights include:

65% of respondents could not identify the United Kingdom on a world map.
70% of respondents could not identify Egypt on a world map.
75% of respondents could not identify Indonesia on a world map.
69% of respondents could find China on a world map making it one of the few recognized countries outside North America.

63% of respondents could not find Iraq or Saudi Arabia on a map of the Middle East.
75% of respondents could not find Iran or Israel on a map of the Middle East.
45% of respondents could not find Iraq nor Saudi Arabia nor Iran nor Israel (not any 1 of the 4) on a map of the Middle East.

43% of respondents could identify Ohio on a map of the United States, up from 35% in 2002.
30% of respondents could not find Louisiana on a map of the United States.
50% of respondents could not find Mississippi on a map of the United States.
50% of respondents could not find New York state on a map of the United States.

88% of respondents could not find Afghanistan on a map of Asia.
70% of respondents could not find North Korea on a map of Asia.
21% of respondents could not find China nor Japan nor Afghanistan nor North Korea nor India (not any 1 of the 5) on a map of Asia.

54% of respondents could not place Sudan in Africa.   20% of respondents place Sudan in Asia, and 10% of respondents place Sudan in Europe.

So, we didn’t exactly fare well when it comes to the straight up geography quiz. What about geography as an extension of current events or global awareness?
75% of respondents could not identify Indonesia as a country with a Muslim majority when presented with a list of India, Indonesia, Armenia, and South Africa.  48% of respondents erroneously answered India.
74% of respondents believe that native English is the most widely spoken language on the globe.
38% of respondents view being able to speak a foreign language as “not that important.”
21% of respondents say that it’s “not too important” to know where countries in the news are located.

Less statistically relevant but equally frightening examples of Americans’ poor geography skills …

Yippee