I'm brusque. I'm impatient. It's genetic. I can't help it. - Donald Rumsfeld, Dec. 18, 2002, CNN interview with Larry King.
I spend most of my time contemplating the purpose and meaning of humankind in the universe. I consider myself an existentialist, something I picked up as a sophomore in college - the ideal time to pick up existentialism and backpackful of other isms.
Fate smiled on my brooding soul the other day when, while browsing a bookstore, I discovered a fellow existentialist, a real soulmate. Right there in front of me was the book Pieces of Intelligence: The Existential Poetry of Donald H. Rumsfeld, compiled and edited by Hart Seely, a reporter for the Syracuse Post-Standard. I had heard of the book but had not read it.
For those who have been asleep since 9/11, Rumsfeld (D.H. Rumsfeld, as Seely says he is affectionately known among the literary cognoscenti) is the nation's square-jawed, harsh-talking, heartless secretary of defense, an existentialist on the order of Albert Camus' Meursault.
Whoa! Do not misunderstand. Existentialists embrace pleasure like the rest of us. Meursault, for example, revels in logic, relishes the simple act of walking on the beach, craves the company of Marie and even enjoys the solitude of prison.
Rumsfeld takes great pleasure is language - not the written kind, but the spoken kind, a tiny sampling of which I will share below.
Yes, our strongman at the Department of Defense is a stand-up bard.
Because Seely uses the adjective "existential" in his title, I looked up the term to affirm my understanding its meaning. Here is Webster's definition of existential in the category of logic: "implicitly or explicitly asserting actuality as opposed to conceptual possibility."
Stay with me. Here is part of Seely's assessment of Rummy's ruminations: "Rumsfeld surrenders to his poetic muse when confronting the boom microphones and iron-willed interrogators of the Washington press corps. During news briefings and media interviews, Rumsfeld quietly inserts haiku, sonnets, free verse, and flights of lyrical fancy into his responses, embedding the verses within the full transcripts of his sessions, which are published on the U.S. Defense Department's website."
Selected verse (Seely's titles) of D.H. Rumsfeld:
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, Defense Department briefing
Needless to Say: Needless to say/The president is correct./Whatever it was he said. - Feb. 28, 2003, Defense Department briefing
Polls: Opinion polls go up and down,/They spin like weather vanes./They're interesting, I suppose./I don't happen to look. - Sept. 8, 2002, CBS's Face the Nation
Chasing the Chicken: If you're chasing the chicken/Around the chicken yard/And you don't have him yet,/And the question is, how close are you?/The answer is, it's tough to characterize/Because there's lots of zigs and zags. - Nov. 14, 2001, New York Times editorial board
Unanimity: Now,/Is there unanimity?/No./Did anyone ever expect unanimity?/No./Life isn't like that. - March 6, 2003, CNBC interview
On Walking Towards a Wall: If you're walking towards a wall/And you decide you want to go to the opposite wall,/The sooner you make the correction,/The easier it is./If you wait until you're right face up against the wall,/Then you've got to make a sharp turn. - June 24, 2002, Bloomberg News interview
Doing the Doable: What we are doing/Is that which is doable/In the way we're currently doing it. - Oct. 8, 2001, Defense Department briefing
In Command: A government is/Governing or it's not. And/If not, someone else is. - March 23, 2003, NBC's Meet the Press
Evasion Haiku: I'm working my way/Over to figuring out/How I won't answer. - Dec. 3, 2002, Defense Department briefing
They Know Nothing: Anyone who knows anything isn't talking/And anyone with any sense isn't talking./Therefore:/The people that are talking to the media,/By definition, people who don't know anything,/And people who don't have a hell of a lot of sense. - Sept. 22, 2002, with media en route to Poland
Rules: Anything that I say/That I shouldn't have/Is off the record/I want you to/understand that/Right now, up front. - Jan. 12, 2002, Washington Post interview
Not Well: We're not doing that well,/And of course, the reason is/It's not an even playing field./We're a democracy/And they're a dictatorship./So they control their ground,/And they manage the press,/And they lie repeatedly./And we don't manage the press,/We don't lie - /No, we don't at all. - March 6, 2003, CNBC interview
Some last thoughts from Seely: "The poetry of D.H. Rumsfeld demands to be read aloud. Like the epics of Homer, or modern African-American street poetry, Rumsfeld's oeuvre originated as oral improvisation....Sometimes comic, sometimes dark, D.H. Rumsfeld's poetry is irreverent but always relevant, occasionally structurally challenged and always structurally challenging."
The wonderful thing for people like me - aficionados of Rumsfeldian versification - is that George W. Bush, himself a linguistically lite wordsmith, probably will keep Rumsfeld on as defense secretary.
