Rummy's Rumminations: The Collected Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld

On Wednesday, Donald Rumsfeld told the Washington press corps that the war in Iraq "is not well-known. It was not well-understood. It is complex for people to comprehend."

These nuggets of grumpy wisdom by the newly ousted Secretary of Defense almost reach the poetic conciseness of Haiku poetry. That being said, I found a hilarious republished article by Slate Magazine originally from 2003 when Hart Seely collected Donald Rumsfeld's "best verse."

The "poems" are the exact words of the defense secretary, as taken from the official transcripts on the Defense Department website. Move over William Carlos Williams and Frank O'Hara, there's a new poet in town. Here's one of Rummy's "poems":

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

Read The Collected Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld.