an unprecedented beginning to a blog

I have many problems with the way people use the English language, but one in particular was brought to my attention today. I think its time to retire the use of the word "unprecedented" for non-legal purposes.

The following, taken from a criticism of an interview with disgraced Senator Larry Craig, brought this to my attention:

"his repeated use of the phrase, 'I’m in the middle of an unprecedented media firestorm' show an inflated sense of self-importance which still has the power to shock.
'Unprecedented?' Compared to what - Nixon’s resignation? The murder of JFK? September 11?"

Its probably safe to say, with very few exceptions, that almost every experience of the human condition has pretty much been done to death. The only real differences are matters of scope. I guess a nuclear holocaust could cause death and destruction on an unprecedented scale, but that's just because we have more people packed into less space than ever before. Numbers aside, it would still have both nuclear attacks and regular old holocausts as precedents.

Politicians, news reporters, and, worst of all, sports broadcasters are guilty of making the event at hand more important than it is by declaring it to be a singular event in recorded time. But what, after 200,00 years of human history, can actually be said to not have a

1pre·ce·dent (n)
(an event that is) prior in time, order, arrangement, or significance ?

Certainly not political scandals, or the aforementioned death and destruction, or large business transactions. Actually, a business transaction might lack precedent if we transitioned our entire economy into one based on sexual favors.

For an event to lack precedent, it would have to be wholly unique. For instance, the following:

An unprecedented attack on earth by an alien species
An unprecedented spontaneous freezing of all the earth's oceans
An unprecedented discovery of disembodied, beating human hearts living happily in the amazon rain forest.

And such.

Rather than being in the middle of "an unprecedented media firestorm," perhaps Larry Craig just meant that he certainly wasn't used to all the attention. Perhaps he could have qualified his statement to make it more accurate. A media firestorm unprecedented in the annals of closeted Idaho Senators stupid enough to solicit gay sex in an airport bathroom might work, but something tells me that Craig would rather err on the side of inaccuracy than get too caught up in the details.

Either way, I think its pretty fair to ask that we all stop saying unprecedented when we really mean "new to me."