They ought to have intelligence or at least history tests for congressional candidates

Congressman Sheila Jackson Lee has surfaced in a video in which she address the House with regard to the war in Vietnam. To call Lee an idiot is not sufficient -- she is an illiterate when it comes to history. In her short statement she laments the fact that the USA did not recognize the victory it won in Vietnam thereby harming the soldiers who fought there and leading to further casualties. Lee goes on to say that today we have two Vietnams living side by side in peace. North Vietnam and South Vietnam are no longer fighting.

If Lee were a high school sophomore, it might be funny that she has no knowledge of what actually happened in Vietnam. When she says things like this on the floor of the House of Representatives in Washington, however, it is a national embarrassment. Obviously, the US did not win in Vietnam. In 1975, Americans were evacuated from the roof of the US embassy in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) as the South Vietnamese capital fell to the invading North Vietnamese forces. Hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese died or fled the country in the next years. Many ended up in the US. After Saigon fell, the war ended in a total victory for the North Vietnamese and a total defeat for the USA. North Vietnam annexed South Vietnam and the resulting country is now just called Vietnam. There are not two countries living side by side in peace. There is only one country still controlled by the communists from the North who won the war.

I doubt that many will care that Lee does not know the history that took place 35 years ago. The important thing to know here, however, is that Lee is 60 years old. She was bornin January of 1950. That means that during most of the Vietnam War, Lee was either in college or already graduated from college. She does not have the excuse that she was just a child when all of this happened. She lived through it and now either has no knowledge of it or else she is prepared to just lie about it all to make a point. Having seen Lee in action for years, I find either explanation plausible.