Why We Should Know The Knowns, Knowing The Unknowns, And Being Aware That There Are Unknowns Unknowns

Rumsfeld: Know the Unknowns -- L. Gordon Crovitz, Wall Street Journal

'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 tends to be the difficult one."

For this answer to a reporter's question in 2002 about links between Saddam Hussein and terrorists seeking weapons of mass destruction, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was given a Gobbledygook Award by the Plain English Institute, and immortalized in a Joan Jett song and a collection called "The Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld."

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My Comment: This is presently a "free article" to read from the Wall Street Journal. If you get the chance to read it .... consider yourself lucky. L. Gordon Crovitz gives a fair assessment on Donald Rumsfeld tour in the Pentagon, and while I have disagreed in the past on many of Rumsfeld's decisions .... I have always admired his ability to focus on issues that are outside the box, and trying others to think the same way. Crowitz also recognizes this, and kudos to him to pointing this out. Read it all.