No History Beyond Last Week

I wrote a paper on the Cuban Missile Crisis in the 10th grade. I was quizzed on it in social studies classes well before that. I saw Thirteen Days. I don't think my upbringing was all that unusual. Did Dana Perino go to school?

Appearing on National Public Radio's light-hearted quiz show "Wait, Wait . . . Don't Tell Me," which aired over the weekend, Perino got into the spirit of things and told a story about herself that she had previously shared only in private: During a White House briefing, a reporter referred to the Cuban Missile Crisis -- and she didn't know what it was.

"I was panicked a bit because I really don't know about . . . the Cuban Missile Crisis," said Perino, who at 35 was born about a decade after the 1962 U.S.-Soviet nuclear showdown. "It had to do with Cuba and missiles, I'm pretty sure."

So she consulted her best source. "I came home and I asked my husband," she recalled. "I said, 'Wasn't that like the Bay of Pigs thing?' And he said, 'Oh, Dana.' "

And I said, "Oh my freakin' Lord."

You know, having a sense of history is I think maybe slightly essential in a President or his or her staff.

Dana Perino: easy to look at. That's about it.