Congressman Solomon P. Ortiz
September 18, 2002
On Tuesday's Today Show, the perky Katie Couric asked a stupid question for the ages. As a result of this question, we are starting a new award, the Katie Couric Award. Whenever someone asks an absolutely stupid question, they will win the Katie Couric Award for that day. There could easily be multiple winners, depending on how we're able to keep up with all the stupid questions out there.
Here is the question Katie Couric asked on Tuesday of an FBI special agent in Buffalo, in reference to the Al-Qaeda Democrats that were busted up there: "But what other than the fact that they trained at this camp do you all have as evidence in terms of their being terrorists or being a part of the a terrorist cell?" You could come up with any analogous question you want to prove the stupidity here. The evidence is that they trained at the camp!
Today's winner of this award is a Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, Solomon P. Ortiz of Texas, who asked this question of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld: "If we attack Iraq, are we going to begin to see suicide bombers within the United States because we don't have the right intelligence?" This is even better than Katie's question! Rumsfeld's answer was basically, "Well, if you're worried about a cause and effect, we already have the effect. It was 9-11."
Congressmen Ortiz: Glittering Jewel of Collossal Ignorance
In other words, you have the order backwards, Congressman Ortiz. There have already been suicide bombings here, and there have already been terrorist attacks. They started in 1993 at the World Trade Center, and have moved forward, and since then 800 Americans, in addition to the 3,000 killed in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, have been killed in the United States and abroad by terrorist activity.
Congressman Ortiz's question was so amazingly stupid and worthy of our inaugural Katie Couric Award that we decided we had to know more about this man. So, we went to his website, where we found posted, "Ortiz: A Lifetime of Service" which recounts a typical day in Washington for the esteemed congressman. He doesn't do a thing all day, except have meals! It reads like a cheap book report. After reading it, you still wonder, what does he do? Why did he get elected? And why does he get reelected? Well, you can go to the web site if you want and read it for yourself or you can listen to me read it in the audio link below. Congratulations, Congressman Ortiz!