I know this is a horrible year in American politics and I also know that some of you are looking a voting for former New Mexico governor and current Libertarian Party nominee, Gary Johnson.

From today on Morning Joe:

.@mikebarnicle: What would you do, if you were elected, about Aleppo? @GovGaryJohnson: And what is Aleppo? https://t.co/ZbqO5RAEsk

— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) September 8, 2016

Asked what he would do about the Syrian city of Aleppo, the region at the center of that nation’s civil war and refugee crisis, Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson responded by asking, “what is Aleppo?”

“What would you do if you were elected about Aleppo?” MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” panelist Mike Barnicle asked the former New Mexico governor during an in-studio interview Thursday morning.

“And what is Aleppo?” Johnson responded.

“You’re kidding,” a stunned Barnicle replied, to which Johnson answered that he was not.

Barnicle explained to the Libertarian candidate that Aleppo is “the epicenter of the refugee crisis” in Syria, giving Johnson enough information to finally answer the question.

“Okay, Got it. Well, with regard to Syria, I do think that it’s a mess,” he said. “I think the only way that we deal with Syria is to join hands with Russia to diplomatically bring that at an end but when we’ve aligned ourselves with — when we have supported the opposition, the Free Syrian Army, the Free Syrian Army is also coupled with the Islamists, and then the fact that we’re also supporting the Kurds and this is, it’s just a mess. And this is the result of regime change that we end up supporting and, inevitably, these regime changes have led to a less safe world.”

Even if you give Johnson the benefit of the doubt here, perhaps he’d never heard the word pronounced or he thought Baricle said “Alpo” or the medical marijuana was working on him — and I’d caution you to look at Johnsons facial expression when asked the question if you are inclined to grant such a benefit — you are still left with his acceptance of the fact that the Russians are a partner in this operation and that they have the vaguest interest in bringing the war in Syria to a close.

I know the drowning man grasps at straw but, my gosh, Gary Johnson resembles a less astute Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton more than a straw. In fact, he actually managed to make Donald Trump look like an astute observer of foreign affairs.