In Popular Culture
Since Rumsfeld's speech, the full quote and the terms "known knowns" and "unknown unknowns" have appeared in popular culture:
- The title of The Unknown Knowns: A Novel by Jeffrey Rotter is an allusion to the quote, and the full quote appears in the book's inscription
- The quote is featured in the CD recording, The Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld and Other Fresh American Art Songs
- Hart Seely's compilation of quotes by Rumsfeld is entitled Pieces of Intelligence: The Existential Poetry of Donald H. Rumsfeld (2003)
- In The Boondocks animated series, the character Gin Rummy, a representation of Donald Rumsfeld, makes several references to unknown unknowns
- The band No Use for a Name used the entire aforementioned quote in their song Fields of Agony (Acoustic) on the record Rock Against Bush, Vol. 2
- In "Lil' George and Lil' Tony Blair", an episode of Lil' Bush, Lil' Rummy makes a reference to the unknown unknowns
- The Joan Jett song "Riddles" features the full unknown unknowns quote
- Belgian director Johan Grimonprez ends his film essay Double Take with the quote
- Theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss uses the quote as opening to the second chapter of his book A Universe from Nothing
Read more about this topic: There Are Known Knowns
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