Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Tuesday that "mistakes were made" regarding the firing of eight U.S. attorneys and he accepts responsibility for the ordeal.

--CNN

I can't resist mentioning the oddity of Gonzales using the phrase "mistakes were made." After all the times that infamous passive voice phrase has been uttered, you'd think Republicans would know to avoid it.

Former President Ronald Reagan, on the Iran-Contra scandal, in 1986:

"Mistakes were made."

George W. Bush, on the Abu Ghraib scandal, in 2004:

" It's also important for the people of Iraq to know that in a democracy, everything is not perfect, that mistakes are made."

--Carpetbagger Report

Well, don't forget: One of those guys got reelected six months later. The other is considered a secular saint by huge swaths of the country. If I were a sleazy, incompetent Republican, I’d reach for those precedents, too.