Our Congressional Intelligence folks display a marked lack of intelligence

[JeffL]

Is it any wonder we make such stupid votes in Washington? Reyes recent questioning (Reyes is tapped to head the Intelligence Committee) displayed about the same knowledge of Al Quaeda and Hezbollah and other matters as the average person living in a trailer in the Catskills shooting at their feuding neighbor.

Reyes has been on the Intelligence Committee since before 9/11.

His embarrassing lack of basic understanding of what's going on in the world of terrorism, who and what we're facing, etc. has unearthed other examples of people serving on our congressional intelligence committees that couldn't tell you the difference between a Sunni and Sushi.

Sheesh.

[BrewersDroop]

I thought the Iraqis were Muslims!?

[Jason McCullough]

The sad thing is that this is an improvement (http://public.cq.com/public/20061211_homeland.html) over the previous GOP committee chair, who didn't even know the names of the two sides. The dumb and the ever so slightly less dumb.

Congresscritters are appallingly ill-informed on foreign policy. It's always been this way, too, apparently.

[Case]

In most congressional commitees, it's really the staffers who come up with policy suggestions and recommend them to the committee members. What really counts is the quality of the staffers, who are specialists, as opposed to the congresscritters, who have to know a little about many different things... including fundraising ;-)

[Ben Sones]

What really counts is the quality of the staffers, who are specialists, as opposed to the congresscritters, who have to know a little about many different things... including fundraising ;-)

That's a good point, but in this case, I think it's a stretch even to say that he knows a little.