An indirect commentary on congressional oversight

The left loves to criticize President Bush as an intellectual lightweight.
He's much smarter than they give him credit for, of course.

This post is about congress, on the other hand. The left likes to talk about the need for congressional oversight.

Congressional Quarterly's Jeff Stein found that Nancy Pelosi's current favorite for the chairman of the Congressional Intelligence Committee didn't know that al Qaeda was predominantly Sunni.

Reyes stumbled when I asked him a simple question about al Qaeda at the end of a 40-minute interview in his office last week. Members of the Intelligence Committee, mind you, are paid $165,200 a year to know more than basic facts about our foes in the Middle East.
(CQ)

Unfortunately, this is not a problem limited to Democrats. Just a few lines prior:

For example, [Reyes] knows that the 1,400- year-old split in Islam between Sunnis and Shiites not only fuels the militias and death squads in Iraq, it drives the competition for supremacy across the Middle East between Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia.

That’s more than two key Republicans on the Intelligence Committee knew when I interviewed them last summer. Rep. Jo Ann Davis, R-Va., and Terry Everett, R-Ala., both back for another term, were flummoxed by such basic questions, as were several top counterterrorism officials at the FBI.

It's not even limited to congress (see FBI mention at the end).

I'd like to think that Rep. Jane Harman (D, Calif.) knows how the Sunni/Shiite divide stacks up. It speaks to the Democrats' misplaced priorities that Pelosi isn't supporting Harman for the chair.

Hat tip to Captain's Quarters.