Winslow's heroes tend to dwell amid these conventions: Boone Daniels's sole flaw consists of being so laid-back that he cares more about good friends and doing the right thing than about money, power, or ambition — which is, as shortcomings go, equivalent to the "weaknesses" that candidates offer up in job interviews.
The undated report, written more than a year ago by Randy I. Bellows, a veteran federal prosecutor in Virginia, said that an administrative inquiry used by the Energy Department as the basis for recommending an F.B.I. investigation of Dr. Lee, was "a deeply flawed product whose shortcomings went unrecognized and unaddressed due to the F.B.I.'s own inadequate investigation".
All the shortcomings are going to get resolved in the next year or two, but the upsides are almost limitless.
But the faithful should think twice before declaring Porsche and Lotus defeated, because the 4C is a long way from perfect and it exhibits some frustratingly basic shortcomings that go beyond its disturbingly insect-like headlights.
These huge shortcomings are not going to be resolved by the assignment of an additional individual to the White House staff.
Moping around and constantly thinking about our shortcomings isn't going to help our lives, though.
It's basically learning how to understand who they are, what their shortcomings are and going forward in spite of them.
"For all their methodological shortcomings, rankings aren't going to disappear," said Jamil Salmi, an education expert at the World Bank.
But there comes a moment -- and mercifully, it comes early -- when you realize that whatever its shortcomings, this cast is going to deliver what you need it to deliver.
It's particularly easy to believe this if you live in the right-wing media bubble, where all of the reports about Obamacare focus on the law's shortcomings and failures insurance premiums going up, people losing coverage, part-time workers losing hours, and so on.
