October 22, 2003
Rumsfeld Adds to His Quoteable Quotes
Donald Rumsfeld has a turn of phrase that sometimes takes me aback. Here is his latest profundity:
"And to the extent they are in conflict with the views of anyone in this department, then they are in conflict with the views of anyone in this department."
Rumsfeld has a whole bunch of webpages devoted to his quotes. I think this one will find its way onto one of those pages.
Although today's quote was a very fine quote, I don't think it approaches his very best :
Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - - the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.
But here is my favorite because I think it is worthy of inclusion in an Anti-Bush ad.
Beware when any idea is promoted primarily because it is "bold, exciting, innovative, and new." There are many ideas that are "bold, exciting, innovative and new," but also foolish.
Perhaps we can steal it?
Posted by Mary at October 22, 2003 02:33 AM | TrackBackEtymologically speaking, I dare say we should "borrow" it. Heck, I'm still using "beef" to describe the meat from a cow; I still haven't returned it to the French.
Posted by: James R MacLean on October 22, 2003 03:09 PM