Some Americans are morons...

[albionus]

It's not just man on the street people who mess up badly. I'm not sure who it was but some blogger quizzed several top Democrat and Republican congressmen on basic Mideast/Terrorist info and the answers sounded like they came from those people in the video. I only recall some of the answers and not who specifically gave them (again though some were Democrats for those who like to make fun of Bush), correct answers in parenthesis,

What religion is Iran? - Sunni (Shia)
How many major ethnic/religious groups are in Iraq? - 2 (3)
Who does Al Qaeda draw support from? - Shiites (Sunni)
Is Hezbollah working with Al Qaeda? - Hezbollah is Sunni and Al Qaeda Shiite so they'll never work together (they are working together, and Hez. is Shiite)
What's the Muslim Holy Land? - Palestine (the Hedjaz)
I forget if it was Turkey or Iran but one of them was said to be Arab.

On the matter of geography/current events there's Rep. Murtha (Democrat leader of the anti-Iraq War movement) saying that US troops could support operations in the Mideast from Okinawa ignoring both obvious geography and the drawdown of US forces on Okinawa in accordance with Japanese wishes.

As for foreign leaders there is the very famous pop-quiz that Bush failed in 2000 but there is also a similar less famous world leader pop-quiz that Kerry failed in 2004 (may have been the same countries, I know Pakistan was on both).

There are examples of this in every country and every political party. Though for obvious reasons I'm more familiar with US examples than other countries. I'm just pointing out that ignorance runs a lot deeper than man on the street or a single politician or party.