> If the democratic setup of the most powerful country in the world can allow such degrees of stupidity it is quite concerning. Well, it's a democratic setup,

> If the democratic setup of the most powerful country in the world can allow such degrees of stupidity it is quite concerning. Well, it's a democratic setup, so its competence is unfortunately proportional to that of its voting public... edit: to be clear, my two comments in this subthread should not be construed to be the typical cynical "politicians are dumb and corrupt" opinion; many of them are smart and well-meaning, but the overall system is not conducive to allowing or encouraging anyone to do anything useful.