"No one could have anticipated...."

[hiaasenrocks]

Is that the new spin? Well, maybe not so new. I remember Condoleeza saying that no one could have anticipated terrorists using planes as missiles. Trouble is, plans to use that tactic had been known since about 1995 when Project Bojinka was discovered on Ramzi Yousef's laptop when he was captured in the Philippines. Oh well.

And now, "No one could have anticipated the breach of the levees." Well, maybe no one did before, say, 1970 or so.

Seems like this is the easiest way to absolve oneself of responsibility. Just say, "No one could have known, so how could we have known?" It sounds logical, and most people won't bother to check the facts/history, so it works. Perfect.

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. It wouldn't work if you or I tried to use it to explain away some big

mistake. You can bet we would either be sued, fired, put in jail or all of the above.

[rpannier]

2. No one could have anticipated scrub speeding up the apocalypse either

But here we are.

Remember with Truman the saying was, "The buck stops here."

With scrub it's, "Don't blame me. I didn't do it." (ala Krusty the Klown)

[shain from kane]

3. Based on another thread, no one could have anticipated

that * would trade nuclear technology for mangoes from India.