November 08, 2005
Sweeter yet...in fact, Awesome
You should check out the Rumsfeld interview with Spiegal. It's all worth reading, but this bit is priceless...
SPIEGEL: ...and nuclear ambitions...
Rumsfeld: That's apparently what France, Germany, the UK and the International Atomic Energy Agency have concluded. Everyone wants to have the Iranians as part of the world community, but they aren't yet. Therefore there's less predictability and more danger.
SPIEGEL: The US is trying to make the case in the United Nations Security Council.
Rumsfeld: I would not say that. I thought France, Germany and the UK were working on that problem.
SPIEGEL: What kind of sanctions are we talking about?
Rumsfeld: I'm not talking about sanctions. I thought you, and the U.K. and France were.
SPIEGEL: You aren't?
Rumsfeld: I'm not talking about sanctions. You've got the lead. Well, lead!
SPIEGEL: You mean the Europeans.
Rumsfeld: Sure. My Goodness, Iran is your neighbour. We don't have to do everything!.
(Thanks to David's medienkritik)..
"You've got the lead. Well, lead!" Can you just imagine how many German "leaders" choked on their kaffekuchen when they read that one? Ha ha ha. How I admire the man. What fun.
Posted by John Weidner at November 8, 2005 06:52 PMJust from reading the interview, Rumsfeld strikes me as a thinking man. He thinks about things, works on things, and reasons things out. It strikes me very much as the approach a successful businessman takes. The businessman knows what is going on in his company, very minutely— but more importantly. he knows when to step out of the way and let the underlings do their jobs.
I suspect this is why he's having such a hard time politically. He's spent too much time assuming that his underlings are a) doing a competent job and b) have the same goals in mind, which is, unfortunately, not often the case. It's all too easy to fall flat on your face as a leader if you don't root out the problem people early on; I know this from the time I had one assistant (just one!) who was incompetent, not from malice but from just being dumb. If I'd figured out sooner that he wasn't up to the job I would have saved myself a world of hurts... and that was in a job that didn't critically affect anyone.
*sigh* I know there's a lot of people who will take his answers for something other than intelligent or competent. I, however, think that he displays a very good grasp of the world at this time.
Posted by: B. Durbin at November 8, 2005 08:58 PMI remember when scorn and derision was heaped on him for this statement:
"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know. "
I happened at the time to have recently been reading about the Boeing corporation. When they build planes, they literally budget for both known unknowns and unknown unknowns (which they call unk unk's!)
Rumsfeld was making perfect sense, and the fools were the Bush-haters who rushed to laugh at him..
Posted by: John Weidner at November 8, 2005 09:43 PMIn December of 2003, Rumsfeld was awarded the Foot in Mouth award from the British Plain English Campaign for his 'known knowns' quote. They give the prize annually for the most nonsensical remark made by a public figure.
To me, Rumsfeld's observation was Plain English poetry - as well as a pragmatic, cautionary perspective on the nature of knowledge.
Posted by: lyle at November 9, 2005 07:48 PM
