Oh Dana!

I'm speechless. Am I the only one who doesn't think that this is funny but DOWNRIGHT EMBARRASSING.

On Saturday, she appeared on NPR’s “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me” during a segment that guarantees embarrassment for its well-known guests, or as the introduction gamely puts it:

The subjects are “asked ridiculous questions about completely random topics and then being mocked and punished for your wrong answers.”

And mocked and punished she was, but not for batting 1-for-3 on the subject of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer minutiae. Instead, it was for volunteering up front the kind of canned tale of self-deprecation that is often seen on late-night-television. The Washington Post retells the relevant passage about a recent question in the White House briefing room that uncovered a glaring historical blind spot for her:

I had a situation the other day when they said President Putin said that our missile defense program was like the Cuban Missile Crisis. And so I got asked about the Cuban Missile Crisis and I was panicked a little bit because I really know nothing about the Cuban Missile Crisis...I came home and I asked my husband...wasn't that like, the Bay Of Pigs thing? And he said, "Oh, Dana."

Could imagine the outrage if, let's say, George Stephanopoulos made this statement when he was press secretary during the Clinton administration?

Thankfully, Keith Olbermann says the obvious so I don't have to.