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Summary: I haven't read this but...
Review: ...I had to correct the last reviewer: Donald Rumsfeld is our Secretary of Defense, not our Secretary of State (that's Colin Powell).
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Summary: The Song Cycle
Review: A local composer has written a song cycle based on the poetry of Donald Rumsfeld. Several of them were performed in May as part of a political cabaret. They were well received and hilarious. I hope they make a recording.
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Summary: it's humor
Review: a way for us liberals to poke fun at The Great Dissembler. Try reading it aloud like a "beat" poet in a smoky, dirty little bar in some overly self-conscious northeastern city. It's not so much ironic as sardonic.Cool.
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Summary: Kyle Haines of Santa Ynez, Ca, you are a tool
Review: along with everyone else who doesn't get the joke.
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Summary: Left and Right have to agree - this guy's hilarious
Review: Donald Rumsfeld's oblique and often rambling pronouncements and interview answers make hilarious -- and chilling -- reading, whatever your political persuasion.
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Summary: RELAX
Review: First of all, anyone who does take this book seriously is crazy. Secondly, have any of you out there heard of irony? The point of this book is to mock Rummy,not cheer him on! So when reading this "book of poetry", please don't forget the grain of salt--and a sense of humour.
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Summary: Funny, Frightening, Ingenious? It's 100% Pure Rumsfeld!
Review: Give credit to Hart Seely for taking the words of an original "Vulcan"* and parsing them as free verse. Honest, Seely is not making this up. The sources of the Rumsfeld quotes are all cited.
--
*(Mann & Mann, _Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet_, Viking, 2004, ISBN 0670032999) I don't see this as Left-ist or Right-ist; it's just Rumsfeld! Listen to one of his Press Briefings and you'll hear how his statements sometimes go off on wild tangents. And it gives insight into the Rumsfeld philosophy. For example, consider: 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 2, 2002, Dept. of Defense news briefing Remember that Rumsfeld said he couldn't predict what would happen in Iraq, both in testimony to Congress and to interviews with the media? Before the war, he insisted its cost was "unknown," hence the appropriations for it weren't in the 2004 Budget. That was the reason the $80 Billion supplemental appropriation was needed last Fall. Or consider this November 2003 quote from Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, "We don't exactly deal in 'expectations.' Expectations are too close to 'predictions.' We're not comfortable with predictions. It is one of the big strategic premises of the work that we do." ... The limits of future knowledge, Feith said, were of special importance to Rumsfeld, "who is death to predictions." "His big strategic theme is uncertainty," Feith said. "The need to deal strategically with uncertainty. The inability to predict the future. The limits on our knowledge and the limits on our intelligence." -- Reported by James Fallows in the January/February Atlantic Magazine. You can pick up this book at any page, read the verse, and ponder. Well worth the price.
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Summary: Funny, Frightening, Ingenious? It's 100% Pure Rumsfeld!
Review: Give credit to Hart Seely for taking the words of an original "Vulcan"* and parsing them as free verse. Honest, Seely is not making this up. The sources of the Rumsfeld quotes are all cited.
--
*(Mann & Mann, _Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet_, Viking, 2004, ISBN 0670032999) I don't see this as Left-ist or Right-ist; it's just Rumsfeld! Listen to one of his Press Briefings and you'll hear how his statements sometimes go off on wild tangents. And it gives insight into the Rumsfeld philosophy. For example, consider: 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 2, 2002, Dept. of Defense news briefing Remember that Rumsfeld said he couldn't predict what would happen in Iraq, both in testimony to Congress and to interviews with the media? Before the war, he insisted its cost was "unknown," hence the appropriations for it weren't in the 2004 Budget. That was the reason the $80 Billion supplemental appropriation was needed last Fall. Or consider this November 2003 quote from Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, "We don't exactly deal in 'expectations.' Expectations are too close to 'predictions.' We're not comfortable with predictions. It is one of the big strategic premises of the work that we do." ... The limits of future knowledge, Feith said, were of special importance to Rumsfeld, "who is death to predictions." "His big strategic theme is uncertainty," Feith said. "The need to deal strategically with uncertainty. The inability to predict the future. The limits on our knowledge and the limits on our intelligence." -- Reported by James Fallows in the January/February Atlantic Magazine. You can pick up this book at any page, read the verse, and ponder. Well worth the price.
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Summary: You Can Look the Quotes Up for Yourself on the DoD Website
Review: Go to http://www.defenselink.mil/news/archive.html to see many of these excerpts for yourself, such as quotes from Department of Defense news briefings. First search by the date to get to the press release, then usually there is a link at the bottom to the actual transcript, where you can search for the quote. Things to understand about this book:
1) These are Rumsfeld's own words, taken from interviews, press conferences and the like. They have only been broken into poetic forms.
2) This is not "poetry by Rumsfeld." It's not like the guy fancies himself a poet. He fancies himself a Defense Secretary.
3) Just because it demonstrates the laughable qualities of a right-winger does not make it left-wing propaganda. I loved it so much I typed the whole thing to a file and have been e-mailing one poem a day to dozens of friends. I get regular thanks, even from the conservative crowd.
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Summary: Watch out Emily Dickinson, Rummy's Coming After You
Review: Hilarious and startling. This book contains some real gems of what they call "found poetry," except it's all utterances from our Secretary of Defense. I admire Rumsfeld enormously, and his bizarre utterances have been turned into poetry through the inspiration of Hart Seely. It's just hard to believe these things were actually said. Gordon Lish must be green with envy. Take, for example, 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. Another favorite is The End of the World: Puffs of dust
End up crawling
Up your leg
And hitting your knee
Because it's,
There might be
As much as an inch
Or two or three. Come on, the reviewers who sniped at this collection reek of partisanship. I can't recall any politician talking extemporaneously like Rumsfeld. This is unwittingly brilliant, hilarious stuff. Whether you like the current administration or not, this book is worth owning for the sheer incredulity it inspires.
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