WATCH: Miss California coherently pitches Syrian intervention in 17 seconds
It took President Obama 15 minutes to make a similar case...
![Miss California Crystal Lee](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/FyTMdbaE99PgxLvFnHHeg8-415-80.jpg)
The Miss America pageant made history Sunday night: Miss New York Nina Davuluri was crowned the first Indian-American Miss America. The contest also included the first tattooed competitor, Miss Kansas Theresa Vail (who won the online "America's choice" award).
But there was also a nod to tradition: Miss America returned to storm-battered Atlantic City for the first time in six years, for example. And, like always, there was one answer in the Q&A section that stood out. This time, however, the response, from Miss California Crystal Lee, is getting high marks — in foreign policy circles, no less. (Watch above)
Daniel Drezner is an international relations professor at Tufts and a blogger for Foreign Policy. Jim Pethokoukis is a conservative economic policy analyst at the American Enterprise Institute:
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
![https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516-320-80.jpg)
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Hunter Schwarz at BuzzFeed says that content-wise, Lee's speech was strikingly similar to President Obama's Sept. 10 televised address to the nation. At the end of his very BuzzFeed-y comparison, Schwarz notes, dryly: "Miss California's answer was 17 seconds long. And Obama's was just over 15 minutes."
David O'Shaughnessy at Ireland's Entertainment.ie agrees with Drezner. Lee, he says approvingly, "you just answered a question on international politics in a shorter time and better than your own president." That makes her a great antidote to the idea that "each and every contestant in a beauty pageant was a vapid idiot with barely any education or a hold on the English language," he says.
Lee didn't win, despite the strength of her answer — or her well-received ballet routine — but she did take first runner-up, making her next in line to the throne should Davuluri ever have to abdicate. Lee, 22, is a Stanford grad who started her run to runner-up as Miss Silicon Valley. You might have guessed that from her pre-taped introduction at the Miss American pageant:
"Tweet me, like me, text me! Streaming to you from Silicon Valley, I'm Crystal Lee, Miss California."
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
-
Nasa's 'strangest find': pure sulphur on Mars
Under the Radar Curiosity rover discovers elemental sulphur rocks, adding to 'growing evidence' of life-sustaining elements on Red Planet
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Bodycam shows deputy killing Black woman
Speed Read An Illinois deputy fatally shot Sonya Massey, who had called 911 about suspected trespassers
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
'Spare us the charade'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, The Week US Published