The president demonstrated that he understood this point with respect to the IRS situation—to Republicans, the most toothsome of the three problems the White House is now trying to manage. Firing the acting IRS commissioner within days was the kind of move Obama hasn’t made often enough while in office. He knows very well how potentially dangerous this issue is for him, but whatever the motivation, good for him for moving so fast and striking an assertive posture.

In contrast, Holder’s two attempts at damage control on Tuesday and Wednesday, his press conference and his testimony to the House, struck a defensive one. At his press conference, he wasn’t sure how often reporters’ records are seized, among other lapses. The next day on the Hill, he acknowledged that he did not submit his recusal in writing (it took all of eight seconds for someone on Twitter to produce the relevant legal language showing that such was required), and that he couldn’t remember the date! All Holder’s damage control accomplished was the raising of more questions that will be masticated for days and days.

Bad and defensive damage control also helped make Benghazi the mess that it became. Why, I remember wondering at the time, is the administration so terrified of acknowledging straight up that this might have been a terrorist attack? Yes, I know all the reasons. But they were mostly bad reasons. I truly don’t think your average American would have responded by thinking that the administration that nabbed bin Laden had failed America. He or she would more likely have thought, “Well, it’s a dangerous world out there, especially in a godforsaken place like that, and we can’t stop ’em all, I guess.”

But the damage-control practitioners say: no! The Republicans, Fox, Limbaugh, yadda yadda… They’d have made us into traitors in a week’s time. To which I respond: well, you did acknowledge it was a terrorist attack, and what happened? Nothing! You won the election by a mile! In fact, Jay Carney acknowledged that it was a terrorist attack on September 20. Wanna guess which day Mitt Romney first referred to it as a terrorist attack? September 25! That isn’t exactly what I’d call pouncing on Carney’s long-awaited admission. So when Carney and the White House finally abandoned damage control mode, not one bad thing happened to them.