I have to say that I find Mr. Rumsfeld's work to be of "great quality" but, nevertheless, Mrs. Palin's "body of work" is catching up...quickly. Some examples will serve to illustrate my point:
* Sarah Palin:
Rugged-rugged-hardy
And it is always great to be in Fairbanks. The
rugged-rugged-hardy
people that live up here and [some]
of the most patriotic people
whom you will ever know live here,
[and those who you don’t know now
and will not know ever...]
- Her command of the
Alaskan-English is
"superlative," as you already noted. More below...
Let's compare her words with those of Donald Rumsfeld, it is challenging to match their "clarity," but, here we go:
* Donald 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, Department of Defense news briefing
Glass Box
You know, it's the old glass box at the—
At the gas station,
Where you're using those little things
Trying to pick up the prize,
And you can't find it.
It's—
And it's all these arms are going down in there,
And so you keep dropping it
And picking it up again and moving it,
But—
Some of you are probably too young to remember those—
Those glass boxes,
But—
But they used to have them
At all the gas stations
When I was a kid.
—Dec. 6, 2001, Department of Defense news briefing
* More Sarah Palin:
America Soaring
And getting up here I say it is the best road trip
in America soaring through nature’s finest show.
Denali, [the great one,]
soaring under the midnight sun.
The Extremes
And then the extremes. In the winter time
it’s the frozen road that is competing
with the view of ice fogged frigid beauty,
the cold though,
[doesn’t it split the Cheechakos from the Sourdoughs?]
Our Best Days Were Yesterdays
And it is our men and women in uniform
securing it, and we are facing tough challenges
in America with some seeming to just be
Hell bent maybe on tearing down our nation,
perpetuating some pessimism,
and suggesting American apologetics,
suggesting perhaps that our best days
were yesterdays...
- Link for Palin's poems here:
http://citizensagainstproobamamediab...
* Some more Rumsfeld follows:
A Confession
Once in a while,
I'm standing here, doing something.
And I think,
"What in the world am I doing here?"
It's a big surprise.
—May 16, 2001, interview with the New York Times
Happenings
You're going to be told lots of things.
You get told things every day that don't happen.
It doesn't seem to bother people, they don't—
It's printed in the press.
The world thinks all these things happen.
They never happened.
Everyone's so eager to get the story
Before in fact the story's there
That the world is constantly being fed
Things that haven't happened.
All I can tell you is,
It hasn't happened.
It's going to happen.
—Feb. 28, 2003, Department of Defense briefing
The Digital Revolution
Oh my goodness gracious,
What you can buy off the Internet
In terms of overhead photography!
A trained ape can know an awful lot
Of what is going on in this world,
Just by punching on his mouse
For a relatively modest cost!
—June 9, 2001, following European trip
The Situation
Things will not be necessarily continuous.
The fact that they are something other than perfectly continuous
Ought not to be characterized as a pause.
There will be some things that people will see.
There will be some things that people won't see.
And life goes on.
—Oct. 12, 2001, Department of Defense news briefing
Clarity
I think what you'll find,
I think what you'll find is,
Whatever it is we do substantively,
There will be near-perfect clarity
As to what it is.
And it will be known,
And it will be known to the Congress,
And it will be known to you,
Probably before we decide it,
But it will be known.
—Feb. 28, 2003, Department of Defense briefing
- Link for Rumsfeld's classics is here:
http://www.slate.com/...
* I want to thank
Hart Seely for inspiring me to produce
..."this"