[Tax-chick]

Her answer, in its entirety, was: “I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uhmmm, some people out there in our nation don't have maps and uh, I believe that our, I, education like such as, uh, South Africa, and uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, uhhh, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, should help South Africa, it should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future, for us.”

The question clearly caught Upton by surprise.

What an idiotic question! It would have caught me off guard, too. With time to consider, though, I'd have come up with a great response, such as, "Twenty percent of Americans are either drunk or on drugs at any given moment, and our public schools don't teach geography even to those who are clean and sober."

[JamesP81]

What an idiotic question! It would have caught me off guard, too.

Not me. In fact, I long for the day that I get asked such a question in a public forum, so I can snappily reply, "1 in 5 Americans can't find the US on a map because 1 in 5 Americans are certifiable dumba****s, made so by our public schools and kept so by the Media and Hollywood."

[Rte66]

“Die-raq” - she kept calling Iraq “Die-raq.” I thought it was some lefty anti-war thing she had heard somewhere and wanted to make sure she worked it into the convo.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Beauty pageants are "football games" for gals.

You might think that guys would like them, but that's not the way it works; the contestants are competing not at stunning the guys but at impressing the judges (who will not be Joe Sixpack and will probably be women journalist/celebrity types) that they would stun Joe Sixpack if that was what they were trying to do.

And the interview part of the contest is the most extreme example of the difference. The interview is not an intellectual contest. To the contrary it is a Political Correctness contest. The challenge is to come up with the safest answer. If the question is about failure of teens to know something simple, the answer it is that "Class sizes are too big, and teachers aren't paid enough." The entire Democratic Party, and most importantly all journalists, will adopt you as their sweetheart. And therefore the judges will swoon.

[metmom]

Her answer, in its entirety, was: “I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uhmmm, some people out there in our nation don't have maps and uh, I believe that our, I, education like such as, uh, South Africa, and uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, uhhh, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, should help South Africa, it should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future, for us.”

Are you SURE she's from SC? Sounds like she went to our school and have one of the history teachers who is so obsessed with Africa that that's all she talked about. Some of my daughter's friends who had her were really concerned about passing their regents. Their opinion was" Everybody who had _______ is going to fail. We're dead."