I am firmly in favor of there not being a religious test to hold office. But more and more, I think we might need to institute a basic competency test.

[Freshman Rep. Tom Marino (R-PA) was] quoted in the Times-Tribune questioning President Obama's Libya strategy, and lack of deference to Congress. "The bottom line is I wish the president would have told us, talked to Congress about what is the plan. Is there a plan? Is the mission to take Gadhafi out?" Mr. Marino asked.... "Where does it stop?" he said. "Do we go into Africa next? I don't want to sound callous or cold, but this could go on indefinitely around the world."

Okay, just in case someone reading this is a geographically-challenged as Marino, let me clarify:



Libya is part of the continent of Africa. Continent. Africa is NOT a country. I say that only because it's a little unclear from Marino's speech.

Is it too much to ask our Representatives to at least have a high school level grasp of geography before they sit on the Foreign Affairs Committee?

In his defense, a spokesperson for Marino said that while accurate, his quote was misunderstood:

Marino’s spokeswoman Renita Fennick said Thursday the congressman was quoted correctly, but readers, including those at the Inquirer, apparently misunderstood his comment. There are no U.S. soldiers on the ground fighting in Africa, Fennick said, and Marino wants to keep it that way. “We are not in Africa. There were missile strikes, but many of those missiles were launched from Missouri,” Fennick said. “The congressman’s position is that we don’t want to go into Africa, (but) a few days of missile strikes does not put us on a continent.” Fennick said Marino’s office was “baffled” about how the quote could have been misunderstood.

I'm baffled that they thought this clarification would help them.