I was sent the link to an ABC sit-down with former Secretary Rumsfeld about his upcoming memoir Known and Unknown (coming out February 8th), mostly because it’s fairly well-known that this is one of the few political books that I’m actually looking forward to reading. If for no other reason than because the man has a definite poetic impulse in there, lurking:
“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 that we know,” he said. “There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don’t know.”
Was it Slate who pointed it out, first? – Well, even if they did I remember that they were kind of sneering about it; but it’s not really justified. The above makes perfect sense… if you bother to read it.
Moe Lane
Actually, this exact formulation has been used in Landmark seminars for I-don’t-know how long…as I’d already heard it in 1999, I wasn’t surprised by Mr. Rumsfeld’s usage of it, and was only puzzled by the nimrod know-it-alls who seemed to be unable to parse it…
Read them? It takes time to do that
Salon wasn’t the only one that sneered at it. And it isn’t too surprising; those are the words of a man who solves problems for a living, rather than someone who whines about problems for a living.