hypercautious

After several tries, the hypercautious new hire passed his polygraph exam.

Even Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director of the hypercautious Center for Science in the Public Interest--the self-described "food police"--praised McDonald's in USA Today as being "the top of the top" in food safety.

They are going to reduce the total amount of carbon dioxide, so we may as well increase our output of carbon dioxide and garner all the competitive advantage that we can wring out of their hypercautious blunders.

In ruling against Frederick, the court has muddled the teaching of Tinker and has made it easier for hypercautious school officials to clamp down on a wide range of student speech, some of which will be more serious than the bong banner.

In today's hypersensitive environment, studios often become hypercautious when handling films that feature sexual content or deal with issues such as child abuse.

The Tories are, of course, conservative in some recognizable and important ways: They preach the gospel of lower taxes and, in most cases, reducing the overall size of government (although even there, they have to be hypercautious about not sending a message that they would spend less on health, transportation, and education).

With his hypercautious position on Iraq--"measured," in the opinion of the New York Times--Kerry risks leaving many of those who rightly see the war as a catastrophe with nowhere to go to express their outrage.

Business travelers should also overcome potential embarrassment about seeming hypercautious. When a traveler suspects foul play, he or she should head to the nearest police officer and relay any concerns.

But, with the marketplace changing so fast, it's also true that slow, deliberate, hypercautious, microincremental steps are no longer enough either.

That is, a brilliantly questioning mind (Clinton's) also may be disorganized or hypercautious about getting into situations with potential political hazards.

Worse, in disavowing an August 2002 memo from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel that wrestles with the definition of ''torture,'' the White House has hung a few very fine lawyers out to dry and ensured a hypercautious approach to advice that could very well hamstring future antiterror efforts.