(2003-12-02) — U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said he’s grateful to the journalists who reported that he had received the 2003 Foot in Mouth award from Britain’s Plain English campaign.
Mr. Rumsfeld earned the prize for remarks he made at a February 2002 news conference: “Reports that say something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know,” Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters. “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.“
When informed that he had won the award today, Mr. Rumsfeld said, “I want to thank all the news organizations that ran the story about this award. Because we know there are real news stories; important things folks should know. We also know there are unreal news stories; that is to say we know that an unnamed source planted a made-up story with an unwitting reporter. But there are also unreal non-news stories — which is what professional journalists write while they’re waiting to be hand-fed another insignificant leaked memo by an unnamed know-nothing nobody.”

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