The Root Beer Blog

December 02, 2003

Intention English With Clear Never Three

Plain English has released its 2003 awards, and The Root Beer Blog's honored guest blogger, Donald Rumsfeld, has won the Foot in Mouth award for Baffling Quote by a Public Figure!

"'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.'"

--Donald Rumsfeld

This quote only seems baffling. You have to look at the context in which it was uttered. That quote was an answer to this question:

"In regard to Iraq weapons of mass destruction and terrorists, is there any evidence to indicate that Iraq has attempted to or is willing to supply terrorists with weapons of mass destruction? Because there are reports that there is no evidence of a direct link between Baghdad and some of these terrorist organizations."

--Some reporter

So when you see the reporter basically accusing the administration of being less than honest, and Rumsfeld gives that response, that's him saying "You're right: fuck you!" But you can't say "fuck" on TV, and it's undesirable to have the SoD bleeped, so he had to rephrase. I hope I cleared that up for you.

Mug root beer is good. I know that. But I also know there are root beers I've never had. And I know there are root beers I don't know I haven't had. So when I say A&W root beer is the best, you can believe that it's the best of the known knowns and beats all plausible known unknowns, but may be usurped by unknown unknowns, as we all know. Y'know? So drink Barq's.

Posted by Chris at December 2, 2003 11:19 PM | TrackBack