John Kerry, Secretary of State and SOOPER-Genius!

**Posted by Phineas

“I’m off to Kyrzakhstan, chaps!”

This man is so smart (1), he knows countries no else has ever heard of!

John Kerry has suffered his first gaffe as the new US secretary of state, inventing the nation of ‘Kyrzakhstan.”

In an embarrassing slip of the tongue, Mr Kerry last week praised US diplomats working to secure “democratic institutions” in the Central Asian country, which does not exist.

The newly minted diplomat was referring to Kyrgyzstan, a poor, landlocked nation of 5.5 million, which he appeared to confuse with its resource-rich neighbour to the north, Kazakhstan.

The State Department kindly omitted the error in the official transcript of Wednesday’s speech, which Mr Kerry delivered on the eve of his first foreign trip as secretary of state.

Mr Kerry’s flub was all the more awkward, because Kyrgyzstan is a key ally in the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan and a major recipient of US aid, which totalled $41 million (£27 million) in 2011.

I bet he thinks it’s ruled by “Genghis Khan.”

But the Telegraph shouldn’t be so hard on the noted Bostonian; all those “-stans” surely look alike from the bridge of one’s tax-dodging yacht.

Hillary with the reset button and now Kerry, who, as our top diplomat, can’t even remember who we’re working with in an active war zone. Obama sure can pick them, can’t he?

But it was Mitt Romney’s supposed gaffes that were a national embarrassment.

Footnote:
(1) So smart, he picked John Edwards as his running mate in 2004.

(Crossposted at Public Secrets)