Donald Rumsfeld won ...

[Rakido]

... the Foot in Mouth Award 2003 with this comment:

'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.'

Here are more of them: http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/awards.html


Rakido

[Umfriend]

Yes, I think epistemologists have quite a bit to ponder after this statement.

[Brian Ellis]

It sounds as if it could have come from the mouth of Sir Humphrey Appleby or his sidekick Bernard.

[Novdid]

I saw it on the news the other day. I couldn't stop laughing after the clip. Better than Monthy Python!!!

[Jon P. Inghram]

Bah, you Europeans... you just don't understand these things. It's obvious that he meant that the unknown knowns are clearly unknown by people we know and don't know. Do you know what I mean? If you don't that's ok too because it's really an unknown.

[Novdid]