Who gives a shit.

Who gives a shit.

CH - No, that's just an inadvertent typo by Walt.


Well, I mean ... it depends.

A presidential candidate (however peripheral he may or may not be) didn't recognize the capital of Syria which, as you may have heard, has been in the news off and on for quite some time for a number of reasons.

Now, as he has pretty much the same shot to win as you or I, it doesn't really matter. Still, in a year with two of the least palatable candidates ever to run (not just singly, but also as a duo they have to be the worst pairing ever), it should be next to impossible for another candidate to get headlines for being a dope. Sure, it's not scandalous or anything like that, but it is, I would say, egregiously stupid - it's somewhat akin to Rick Perry's difficulties with the number three I think.

On the other hand, it shouldn't entirely invalidate his candidacy ... I mean, he didn't know, he was honest and owned up to it, and he didn't toss out some bullshit obfuscation to follow it up in hopes of distracting folks from his blunder. I think he's a dope for other reasons, but not really this one, though to say it doesn't matter to me at all would be a mischaracterization.

Isn't Damascus the capital?

Isn't Damascus the capital?

It is. Hank really Damasculated DT with that one.

He should have known but I'm not worried about the fact he isn't intimately aware of every city in Syria.

Maybe not every city but this is pretty much the only city in Syria currently worth knowing about from a political standpoint. And recognizing the fact that it is a city doesn't exactly require "intimate" knowledge. Maybe he was just stoned.

It's a geography question. If he had been asked about Sevastopol he may have had the same response.

I don't even understand why he asked the question in that way unless it was trying to get it to be national news.

Why would you assume that?

Why would you assume that?

"This morning, I began my day by setting aside any doubt that I'm human," Johnson said in a statement shared with The Hill.


"Yes, I understand the dynamics of the Syrian conflict — I talk about them every day. But hit with 'What about Aleppo?', I immediately was thinking about an acronym, not the Syrian conflict. I blanked. It happens, and it will happen again during the course of this campaign," he said.

"Can I name every city in Syria? No. Should I have identified Aleppo? Yes. Do I understand its significance? Yes," he added.

The former New Mexico governor said that while in office "there were many things I didn't know off the top of my head," so he surrounded himself with people who could help him understand issues, which he argued would happen as president.

"That would begin, clearly, with daily security briefings that, to me, will be fundamental to the job of being President," he said.

I remember those dog food commercials Ed McMahon did!

"Correction: September 8, 2016
An earlier version of this article misidentified the de facto capital of the Islamic State. It is Raqqa, in northern Syria, not Aleppo.
Correction: September 8, 2016
An earlier version of the above correction misidentified the Syrian capital as Aleppo. It is Damascus."