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| Biswo |
Posted
on 17-Apr-03 10:58 PM
Rummy, i.e. Donald Rumsfield, is arguably one of the most fascinating leaders of our time. I was too young to see him in his last tenure, but I follow him now whenever possible. In fact, sometimes I am grateful that I learned some English in the past so I can understand him rightnow.His words are uniquely crafted, humorous and they also convey the message that he is trying to convey very clearly.
"There are some knowns that we know we know, there are some unknowns that we know we don't know, and there are some unknowns that we don't know we don't know" he once said about threats from Iraq. It took a while to understand that convoluted but interesting sentence, but I enjoyed every bit of what he said.
"Lack of evidence ," he once said about Iraqi weapon program " is not the evidence of lackness". I disagree with his position, but I like the way he said that. Rummy, who was NCAA finalist wrestler when he was undergraduate student in Princeton in 50s, said something like this today: because the WMD in Iraq were hidden by non-Iraqis, USA may never find them.I am not sure who coined these other words, but they are directly related to Rummy's office, "Unlawful combatants", "Shock and Awe", "Pockets of Resistance", "Embedded Journalists" etc. etc.
[I am glad that Saddam was removed, but this issue about WMD is unsettling. I was watching CNN today [just for five minutes] when some US official said it might take about one year for USA to find WMD. Excuse me, if I remember correctly, USA was so much against extending even thirty days to UN weapon inspectors, and was unhappy about the pace of their inspection.]
To go back to this speech thing again, when I was still learning elementary English, I ran into this sentence from an unbelievably boring person: John Major. After meeting with his Chinese counterpart about Hongkong transition, Major told reporters, "We didn't agree to disagree, we just disagreed." I didn't know what the difference was, so wondered for long about that.
Back in Epistolean era,the major way to send one's message to his countrymen was by writing letters, and asking one of their men to read it loud in public areas. Lincoln was considered to be the best writer of letters, and he victory is credited partially to his writing skill.[He was gauche, and ungainly in his appearance.] Rummy definitely has the knack to wrestle with Lincoln.
Hope to see Rummy again and again, in press conferences, in Saturday Night Lives, and everywhere. He is thousand times better than George Bush, whose only memorable speech was given during his election campaign: pointing at a NYTimes journalist, he told Dick Cheney,"There's Adam Clymer, major league asshole from the New York Times ", Dick Cheney nodded in approval, "Big Time."
Bush refused to apologize for his gaffe.
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| isolated freak |
Posted
on 18-Apr-03 02:19 AM
"multiple bilaterals" so far remains his "best" and (in) famous quote.
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| sally |
Posted
on 18-Apr-03 07:12 AM
Maybe he can be paired on a late-night talk show with my favorite but now sadly missing commentator, Mohammed Sayid al-Sahaf, the Ex-Minister of Amusing Information. I did used to look forward to his daily appearances. I've read that al-Sahaf is also entertaining in Arabic, which he speaks with a real archaic flourish, full of words like "lout," and that whole articles in the Arabic press have been devoted to dissecting his unique use of language.
In the action movie version, Rummy can be played by Sly Stallone, who always took himself too seriously, while al-Sahaf can be played by Schwarzenegger, who always seems to be enjoying the game and laughing at his own lines. (The physical resemble is poor, but when did that ever stop Hollywood? As part of the plot, of course, they can each go and battle it out on the streets, perhaps over their mutual love interest, Jessica Lynch.)
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| sally |
Posted
on 18-Apr-03 08:09 AM
Top Ten Reasons to Give Al-Sahaf a TV Show
10. Better for ratings than Greta Van Susterens facelift
9. If G. Gordon Liddy can be rehabilitated, why not?
8. Reality Shows are passe, its time for an Unreality Show
7. Why watch Hannity and Colmes when theres Rumsfeld and Al-Sahaf?
6. His English is no worse than Dubyas
5. Hed work cheaper than Geraldo, and be just as good a reporter
4. Two words: Oliver North
3. Hed be great at taking the Bush side in debates. ( Deficit? What deficit? WMDs? If theyre never found, what does it matter? )
2. The French would believe his every word
1. Finally, a way to get good coverage on Al-Jazeera
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 18-Apr-03 09:44 AM
>Top Ten Reasons to Give Al-Sahaf a TV Show
Sally,don't you think it will be better version:
"Top Ten Reasons to Give Al-Sahaf a TV Show in FOX"
--
For the sake of correctness, I think Rummy's sentence was this:
"There are some known knowns that we know we know, there are some known unknowns that we know we don't know, and there are some unknown unknowns that we don't know we don't know."
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| sally |
Posted
on 18-Apr-03 10:26 AM
He'd definitely fit in on Fox. In which case, I'd have to add another reason: It would get me to subscribe to cable again, just to see him :-)
Great tongue-twister from Rumsfeld. Do you suppose Bush could repeat it? Even with a teleprompter?
(Btw I'm not among those who imagine that Bush is stupid. I just finished an interesting book, "Bush At War" by Bob Woodward, and it leaves no doubt that, regardless of how one might judge the rightness or wisdom of his decisions, he's both smarter than his public image and very much in charge, which again is contrary to the public image. But ... well, he's no Lincoln! In more ways than one.)
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| Robert Frost |
Posted
on 18-Apr-03 10:49 AM
I actually went on to admire the Iraqi information minister for his colourful defence of a dying regime. He said that the Americans were doing self-killing as the as the Iraqi republican guards were spraying bullets and the Iraqi people were slapping the US "faces with their shoes" which is one of the lowest Arabic means of doing insult. In contrast, Donald Rumseld said that looting was the dirty side of Iraqi freedom. Then in bizarre way Joint Chief of Staff, General Myers went on to support his boss Rumsfeld that law and order issue was not planned by his staff and they were surprised of this development. They only had to order their soldiers to impose a Martial law. One could clearly see the dumb side of Mr. Donald Rumself. What a man??
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| sally |
Posted
on 18-Apr-03 11:19 AM
PJ O'Rourke said that looting is the first stage of shopping.
Unfortunately, we see now that someone is also shopping for biological weapons.
Maybe that the chaos that cometh after a fall was one of the unknown unknowns that we didn't know we didn't know. Although speaking just for me, I knew it, but I didn't know that the knowers of known unknowns and unknown knowns were no-knowers about the known-to-me unknown unknowns. Notable, no?
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 18-Apr-03 12:21 PM
Sally,
Took me a few minutes to decipher so many 'knowns' twined together:-)
In another note, an alternative account of Bush's brain is depicted in "Bush's Brain", by James Moore and Wayne Slater [I saw one of these guys giving interviews in CNN crossfire, if I remember correctly]. Their point is Karl Rove is Bush's brain.
Well, may be Bush is a smart guy. Every body is endowed with a modicum of skill for survival, and politics is the domain where animal instinct to survive is most commonly found. Since Bush is the most successful politician,inferring by the fact that almost every politician aims to be the president of the USA, he must be a very smart person .
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| sally |
Posted
on 18-Apr-03 12:43 PM
There's another interesting aspect, too. I've read that IQ has a 20-point variability for every individual. I don't put much faith in IQ tests, but just to look at it as an indicator, if 140 is "genius" and 100 is "average," and if we've all got 20 points of wiggle room, we're pretty close together, really. An average person will be high average in the right environment, and so on. So if environment makes a difference, then if Daddy is president and everyone treats you with deference and expects great things of you, and you have access to all kinds of information (hence all kinds of ways to learn) and can role model leadership skills from people who are skilled enough to have risen to the top, then I'd say that qualifies as an optimal environment. Dubya may just be an average guy who's benefited from a super environment and became "super" as a result.
"Super," by the way, doesn't necessarily mean "as smart as Clinton" or "as smart as Wolfowitz," just to name two allegedly "smart" people with opposite viewpoints; and it certainly isn't synonymous with "right;" but I'm willing to give credit where credit is due.
Btw I think the point about Rove being "Bush's Brain" is not that Bush doesn't have one, but that Rove is his political mastermind. Probably another good book to read ...
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| _BP |
Posted
on 18-Apr-03 11:21 PM
What is smart? I think the difficulty of defining this concept illustrates the futility of trying to measure it. Geniuses may seem quite dumb to some people, and frequently do behave atypically in public. The eye of the beholder is the ultimate arbiter you see. It is you and your opinion, political in this case, that makes you perceive your leaders in a certain way. A lot of people find Clinton extremely stupid in his essence, and remember him for his moments of jackass stardom. History will judge our leaders' effectiveness, but no one can tell us who is "smarter."
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