The poetry of Donald Rumsfeld

Since Donald Rumsfeld is resigning as defense secretary today, I thought it was a good time to go back to one of the Rumsfeld Haikus that were compiled a few years back. These haikus are actual words taken from the transcripts of Defense Department briefings.

The Unknown
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.

—Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing