Was my title eye-catching enough?
Remember when not long ago journalists were supposed to stop using violent metaphorical language to characterize political occurrences?
Well, over at Memeorandum this morning, I saw a link to an delightfully irresistible headline:
Rumsfeld knifes Condi
I know Rumsfeld is one of those mean and vicious Neo-Cons, but did he really do that? If so, it would be bigger news than Dick Cheney’s hunting accident.
I just had to know. So I clicked the link. (Probably exactly what the inflammatory headline-composer wanted!)
Was I ever in for a disappointment! It turned out that the “knifing” incident was merely Rumsfeld’s recollection of an alleged discreet finger-pointing incident and an allegedly disapproving stare.
Rumsfeld’s pants were worn out, and Condi let him know.
BEHIND THE CURTAIN – Donald Rumsfeld, “Known and Unknown: A Memoir”: National security adviser Condoleezza Rice “was a polished, poised, and elegant presence. I decidedly was not. One time Rice and I were sitting together in an NSC meeting, and I was wearing a pinstripe suit – one that I very well might have owned since the Ford administration. The suit was so well used that the pinstripes on the right leg above the knee were worn off. Rice noticed this, frowned, and pointed discreetly at my leg. Looking down at my suit, I noticed for the first time the missing pinstripes. ‘Gee,’ I whispered to her with a smile, ‘maybe Joyce can sew them back on.’ Condi’s eyes widened. … Often [NSC] meetings were not well organized. Frequent last-minute changes to the time of meetings and to the subject matter made it difficult for the participants to prepare, and even more difficult, with department of their own to manage, to rearrange their full schedules…
Hardly a knifing. Actually, what Condi did strikes me as the sort of maternal thing my mom would have done had I shown up to an important public event wearing worn out pants or unshined shoes. (Which I’m sure I did and I’m sure she did!) Not a big deal. She might have even thought she was being helpful. Of course, at the time, he out-ranked her, because she was the National Security Advisor and he was the Secretary of Defense. Later, though, she became Secretary of State, whereupon she out-ranked him. Rumsfeld may be one of those people who thinks you have to out-rank someone in order to criticize his personal attire. I could see his point if she had been trying to throw her weight around, but she might have thought she was being helpful.
I don’t see Rumsfeld’s complaint as amounting to a knifing, though.
It’s not as if he accused her of being uppity.
MORE: Via Glenn Reynolds, another violent headline:
Which is a lot worse than Dick Cheney’s hunting accident.
Ever since Obama said, “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” we have been subjected to endless cycles of violent metaphorical language!
Comments
10 responses to ““The bitch dissed me, man!””
What about the famous photo of JFK with his feet up on the oval office desk and a prominent hole in the sole of one of them?
I loved Rumsfeld, I used to time my lunch so I could be home watching his press conferences from 03-05 or so. He abused the press so much they got skittish around him.
I got a book titled, “Pieces of Intelligence” by a lefty who hated Rumsfeld.
He tried to make fun of Rumsfeld for how he responded to nitwit questions from leftists “journalists”.
I liked it because the lefty didn’t understand Rumsfeld so in trying to make fun of him he just looked like a fool. The quotes were just Rumsfeld saying what he meant and leftists nitwits don’t quite get that.
So my point.
The guy was especially aghast at his “known and unknown” quote, as all lefties are.
They just don’t understand it’s so true it’s nearly profound.
Quote
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.
Now lefties pounce on that as a sign of stupidity. It’s not.
A known unknown: How soon Iran will have a nuke.
We know we don’t know that but we can handle it.
Two unknown unknowns that were/are very scary.
We didn’t know we didn’t know that Pakistan was close to a nuke until the day we found out they had one.
That Egypt was so close to revolution.
So I’d say the title of his book is a snip that will be sure to drive nitwit, unnuancey leftists into a frothing frenzy.
Politico, as a member in hacktastic standing of Minitru, had to attack.
I work in litigation, and on the way into the courtroom, where appearances matter (just like this), if someone’s wardrobe has a problem, you let them know. Just like this. In court, it would mean to be careful to stay behind the podium and keep your legs under the table. (We generally don’t subscribe to the “don’t shine your shoes before trial” theory.)
Collars are the number one problem, either on suit jackets or shirts. At this point, I don’t even say anything, I just reach out and fix them. Ditto for anything on the back of a jacket from leaning on something (white from drywall is endemic.) If it’s something they can readily fix themselves (missed button, crooked tie, etc) then you just tell them, and they fix it or avoid drawing attention to it.
This isn’t the schoolyard anymore. When you’re on the same team and appearances matter, you better moderate your modesty and indignation.
The difference being this was an NSC meeting, they were all “On the same team”.
Rumsfeld didn’t need to impress a judge with his wardrobe.
I think that assuming that everyone in a NSC meeting is on the same team is an error that Rumsfelf wouldn’t commit.
Okay, that’s funny.
Sorry, If forgot who you were.
well… I would do this to a male colleague. Yeah, I know, but it’s one of those things. Most men have no clue what they leave the house looking like.
I’d do it to a female colleague too, but only if I knew her really well. (Women can be… interesting.)
As for the “knifing” — do you know that “blessing” they give married couples?
“May all your problems be little ones”? Yeah, may all my “knifings” be like this.
@veeshir: you’ve touched on one of my pet hates. “Unknown unknowns” isn’t a phrase Rumsfeld made up: it has been a perfectly standard term in strategy for decades. (I remember coming across the expression in a financial economics textbook in the early 1990s.) The journalists who accused Rumsfeld of stupidity merely exposed their own ignorance.
xj, that’s the truth and that’s why I like the book.
It’s one long screech of “I’m an idiot but I think everybody else is!”
I always get a chuckle out of people who don’t understand something and then all indignant and call the other person stupid. Until you understand what they’re saying or doing, don’t call them stupid. I learned that when I was like 5 (Thanks Nona).
Read the reviews on Amazon on that book, “Pieces of Intelligence”.
Many of them are hilarious and full of hate all at the same time.
That’s much harder to pull off than you would think.
That racist misogynist bastard! Don’t you realize that “pinstripes” is a code word?
Or maybe it’s a dog whistle. Not sure.