Anyone that seeks to be a national leader, or to serve in the cabinet or State Dept, does need to know this, just as any electrical engineer needs to know calculus.
When some moron says "I don't need to know about Uzbeckybeckystan", even though it is true that the State Dept would orient him if he were elected, this shows a lack of what any creative thinker absolutely needs: intellectual curiosity. And such a person should not be elected. When Gerald Ford said that Poland was not dominated by the USSR, that was a far worse degree of incompetence than his decision to pardon Nixon.
Nixon deserved to be prosecuted severely, but the way the justice system works, the trials and appeals would have gone on for years, and it would have done the nation far too much harm and division, and looking back on it, I think Ford made the proper decision.
But not knowing the relationship between Poland and the USSR was a demonstration of serious ignorance, particularly in light of what went on in Poland shortly afterward with the Solidarnosc Movement.