On a side note, I hate it when they say “So-and-so dead at 87.” It just sounds so classless.
“Absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence.”
“You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”
Wasn’t a big fan of his, or of the Neocons, generally, and … yet … still … RIP, Mr. Secretary.
“Passed away” is so classless. I prefer “Slipped beyond the mortal coil and into the darkness eternal.”
Much like Rumsfeld.
My introduction to party politics included campaigning for him for Congress. As too many of ,my stories begin, there was this girl… 
He will finally learn the details of the humanity’s primary “known unknown”
Well said.
The finest Secretary of Defense ever to grace a packet of wasabi peanuts.
…bye… 
All I can say is that the last four years have greatly improved my opinion of Rumsfeld so now I view him with a sort of wistful nostalgia for the days back when W was deemed to be the worst a president could be.
Did you mean, “Smell that, Bill?”
Rumsfeld and his cronies were for me, the beginning of the end of devotion to Republican politics. At first I defended him when the left wanted him fired and tried for crimes against humanity over Abu Ghraib. But on a promise to a friend of a former roommate, I started to examine -honestly- the motives and actions of my preferred party and I didn’t like what I found.
It took a long, long time but I have abandoned the Republican Party and become much more open and nuanced in my political thought thanks to Rumsfeld. I couldn’t stomach what the left was alleging about him-- but after a while I couldn’t stomach what he was saying even more.
Rumsfeld was the epitome of establishment Republican ego and hubris. He thought of himself as some sort of unconventional war genius and was exposed as a half-baked McNamara 2.0
Apropos of nothing in particular, I looked up Dick Cheney to find out that he’s not only still alive, but only 80 years old. He already looked 79 in those photos from the Shrub administration. Either he looks 100 now, or he’s one of those Walter Brennan types that look way old before their time, and then age into their face.
Rumsfeld was much mocked for his “unknown unknowns” speech but that made sense to me. Overturning decades of policy on torture much less so. Many will miss him lots. Many more wish he had taken Trump hunting and missed less. Allegedly.
That was Cheney, but the same wish holds.
Ibid.
The guy was a disaster and was responsible for a lot of pain and suffering by millions of people. I have no love lost for him.
But he didn’t deserve the mockery for “known unknowns, unknown unknowns.” It sounded weird at first, but actually was a good way of putting things.
I do blame him for what I’ve called “Rumsfelding” ie the rhetorical tic of asking the question and answering it.
Which has become a huge annoying thing.
I totally agree in terms of content. I think his wording though made it sound a bit strange. The idea could have been expressed in a better way than it was.
Part of the problem was the certainty with which he expressed things which supported his agenda.
I agree that the known/unknowns analysis is sensible (If perhaps poorly conveyed) but at the time, as I recall it, it came across as scrambling for an explanation of why the war didn’t go the way that he was sure it would (eg, soldiers greeted with flowers).