Thursday, October 14, 2004
Donald Rumsfeld Dead in Mysterious Attack
Washington, D.C. (AP)--Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is dead, victim of a vicious attack by what police are tentatively saying was a crazed liberal with a grudge.
As far as the Secret Service can determine, Rumsfeld and President Bush were alone in the president's helicopter en route to Camp David when the assailant somehow attached himself to the outside of the chopper, possibly with large magnets on his hands and feet, worked his way around to the door, forced it open, and went berserk inside the compartment, slashing Secretary Rumsfeld to death with a knife.
President Bush, a strong leader, did not hesitate. With no thought for his own life, he rushed into the fray, quickly disarming the assailant and sustaining in the process only a few minor cuts and bruises.
In the scuffle the assailant apparently fell out of the chopper through the open door. His body is currently being sought by local Boy Scouts. The Maryland police officers and National Guardsmen who would normally conduct such a search have all been deployed to Iraq.
Unfortunately, the brave president was unable to save his friend and advisor. The attacker's knife had found its mark.
Donald "Rummy" Rumsfeld, 72, an Eagle Scout himself from Chicago, Illinois, who served his first term as Secretary of Defense under Gerald Ford--in 1975 the youngest man ever appointed to that position--will best be remembered by a grateful America for his calm confidence that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.
His softer side was less well known to the American public. Few Americans know that he was also a poet, who wrote the classic "Unknown Unknowns":
Reports that say that something hasn't
happened are always interesting to me
because 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--
and if one looks throughout the history
of our country and other free countries
it is the latter category that
tend to be the difficult ones
"Rummy" Rumsfeld is mourned by his wife, three children, fourteen grandchildren, and upwards of 7000 tame mantids.
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