Walter F. Mondale Quotes
If you are sure you understand everything that is going on, you are hopelessly confused.
Mondale, Walter F. Quoted in Reader's Digest, vol. 118, 1981, p. 17.
This seemingly abstruse philosophical statement actually found its way into one of the major political debates of the 21st Century when the Secretary of Defense was defending the management of the Iraq War and the interpretation of intelligence. See {586062}.
The principle seems to have been generalized from the military field to include executive orders, diplomatic instructions, policy statements and the like.
Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale was an American politician, statesman, diplomat, and lawyer who served as the 42nd vice president of the United States from 1977 to 1981 under President Jimmy Carter. A U.S. senator from Minnesota from 1964 to 1976, he was the Democratic Party's nominee in the 1984 presidential election, but lost to incumbent Ronald Reagan in an Electoral College and popular vote landslide. Reagan won 49 states while Mondale carried his home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia. His vice presidential nominee, U.S. Representative Geraldine Ferraro from New York, was the first female vice-presidential nominee of any major party in U.S. history.
