The unending benefit of endless "Perfect Storms" [View all]

[truedelphi]

From the interesting crew over at tinyrevolution.com

It's Not Our Fault If It's a Perfect Storm!

Whenever elites fail in a gigantic, public way, you can be sure of one thing:
it was a "perfect storm." So you can't blame them for what happened.

Edward Snowden's leak of NSA documents was, at least by their standards, a big failure. But as Director of National Intelligence James Clapper explained to Congress on Tuesday, it wasn't their fault because it was a perfect storm:

The director, James R. Clapper Jr., testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Mr. Snowden had taken advantage of a “perfect storm” of security lapses.
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Why was there a gigantic financial crisis in 2008? According to the International Monetary Fund's chief economist, you can't blame them because it was a perfect storm:

In short, underestimation of risk, opacity, interconnection, and leverage, all combined to create the perfect (financial) storm.
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Why was New Orleans destroyed by Hurricane Katrina? According to then-Director of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, you can't blame them because it was a perfect storm:

"That 'perfect storm' of a combination of catastrophes exceeded the foresight of the planners, and maybe anybody's foresight," Chertoff said. He called the disaster "breathtaking in its surprise."
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And why did everyone in the U.S. government believe Iraq was teeming with WMD? According to a top U.S. intelligence official, you can't blame them because it was a perfect storm:

[W]as Iraq, as one senior intelligence official told the Commission, a sort of “perfect storm”—a one-time breakdown caused by a rare confluence of events that conspired to create a bad result?

That's four perfect storms in ten years. Man, our elites have the worst luck.

—Jon Schwarz