Ok, you can have Ortega, but I get Gates...

"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know." Fmr. Secretary of Offence, Donald Rumsfeld, 12 February 2002, during a DoD Briefing

Rummy exits, stage left, to go collect his millions from the rise in Roche shares as a result of the demand for Tamiflu. He may also lose some sleep at the loss of approximately 600,000 Iraqi souls, and almost 3,000 US servicemen and women, but it is more likely that his tossing and turning will be the result of having to change his future travel plans in the event of war crimes charges ever being brought against him in a European (or dare I suggest, a Canadian) courtroom.

And in his place, well, a fine gentleman indeed. Former Director of Central Intelligence under Bush #1 and current Texas A&M university president. Oh, he's also pretty knowledgeable about that thing called Iran-Contra... er, sorry, other people are pretty knowledgeable about his involvement in Iran-Contra. He's not so sure.

Really, though, we can all see Dubya slowly rolling his middle finger up like a jack-in-the-box, both to those who think he's ready to make peace in Washington, and especially his friends in Latin America. The reason for the bird flipping: Former Sandinista rebel, and US public enemy #1 (and a main reason for Iran-Contra), Daniel Ortega, rising like a phoenix from the ash-jungles, to take the presidency of Nicaragua.

The most surprising thing of all:

Dubya undertstanding, let alone applying, the concept of "irony".