Government By Moron

Jeff Stein sets out to ask some counterintelligence officials and the congresspersons charged with overseeing them if they know the difference between a Shiite and a Sunni. The results are sobering. The lack of any interest in actually understanding what's going on in the Islamic world -- the preference for crude historical analogies, chest-pounding, and feel-good rhetoric -- in this country is both absurd and more than a little frightening. Via Jonah Goldberg. UPDATE: For a genuine challenge, does anyone understand the Zensunni/Zensufi split in the Dude books?

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2006/10/government-by-moron/40421/