Following the next question, Coons revisited the remark – likely thinking he had caught O’Donnell in a flub – saying, “I think you’ve just heard from my opponent in her asking ‘where is the separation of church and state’ show that she has a fundamental misunderstanding.”

“That’s in the First Amendment?” O’Donnell again asked.

“Yes,” Coons responded.

O’Donnell was later able to score some points of her own off the remark, revisiting the issue to ask Coons if he could identify the “five freedoms guaranteed in the First Amendment.”

Coons named the separation of church and state, but could not identify the others – the freedoms of speech, press, to assemble and petition – and asked that O’Donnell allow the moderators ask the questions.

“I guess he can’t,” O’Donnell said.

Get that sting in there, Christine. I'm not any happier that Coons was unable to respond, but O'Donnell's ignorance of such a core fundamental value of this country (as well as the misunderstanding of the scientific definiton of the word "theory", as in the "theory of evolution") has to give one pause.