In one respect, Hillary Clinton can be forgiven if she didn't know the story of how the apparition of the Virgin Mary appeared on a peasant's coat back in 1531. It's a "Catholic thing" and most American protestants aren't familiar with Catholic teaching.
The story of how the apparition appeared on the coat can be found here. But it isn't that Hillary Clinton didn't know Catholic myths but rather her total ignorance of Mexican culture that is the problem. John Hinderaker at Powerline explains:
The Catholic News Agency says that after viewing the cloak, Clinton turned to the priest who was showing her the Basilica and asked, "Who painted it?"
This is one of those stories that seem like it can't possibly be true. Could America's Secretary of State really be ignorant of a central cultural symbol of a country next door? It is as though a foreign minister came to Washington, was shown Stuart's portrait of George Washington, and asked, "Who was he?" It is hard to imagine how Clinton's staff could have prepared her for her visit without making sure she knew the story. So for now, I'm reserving judgment. It will be interesting to see whether CNS's story is confirmed and whether the State Department has any comment.
The priest she asked who painted the relic reportedly replied "God!" which may have flustered our "smart" Secretary of State. Indeed, Hillary's entire tenure so far has been marked by one blunder after another.
Ed Morrissey:
Some “smart diplomacy,” huh? First Hillary doesn’t understand multiparty democracy, then she fumbles a snarky “reset button” by mistranslating it and putting it in Latin rather than Cyrillic script. She can’t even get names straight, let alone sound intelligent when visiting national shrines. A few more of these and we may have a new feature here at Hot Air.
Sure am glad we now have smart people running our foreign policy, aren't you?
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