Optimal Binders, or something

I've been paying attention to political campaigns, especially presidential campaigns, since 1972, when I was in the 4th grade and my fellow St. Therese students made our own Nixon or McGovern signs and paraded down Wisconsin Avenue with them.

Maybe I'm a little thick or something, but for the life of me I can't understand why the Dems are trying to turn Mitt Romney's "binders full of women" line into some sort of scandal. It can't be helping.

Neither does this:

President Obama, during the taping of The Daily Show, discussed the Benghazi terrorist attack that claimed the lives of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya and three other Americans.

“Here’s what I’ll say. When four Americans get killed, it’s not optimal. We’re going to fix it,” Obama said per pool. “The government is a big operation and [at] any given time something screws up,” he also said, saying that he believes “you find out what’s broken and you fix it.”

The president was responding to this question from Stewart. “Is part of the investigation helping the communication between these divisions? Not just what happened in Benghazi, but what happened within,” the comedian asked according to the pooler. “Because I would say, even you would admit, it was not the optimal response, at least to the American people, as far as all of us being on the same page” (emphasis added).

I guess I'm supposed to be outrageously outraged at Obama's callousness in his phrasing, but I can't get that worked up about it. He was merely responding to the question Jon Stewart asked and mimicked the phrasing.

There are two larger problems, as I see it:

• The gotcha game has long since jumped the shark
• Obama's problem isn't what he said, but where he said it

More on both topics anon.