[Ads-l] First-occurrence syndrome

[Jonathan Lighter]

Richard Clarke, former White House Counterterrorism Advisor, on CNN:

"It was a warning of something that had never happened before. We call it
'first-occurrence syndrome.'   If something has never happened before, even
though all the evidence looks good, decision-makers will routinely reject
it, because in the back of their mind they're thinking, 'Well, that's never
happened.' Terrorists flying over the wall in hang gliders to land and
shoot up kibbutzes had never happened; it sounded like something out of a
Hollywood movie."

JL
-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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