Sometimes, you've screwed things up so badly that there's no longer anything you can do to win the conversation, and your only hope for salvation lies in a change in the conversation.
That axiom of public relations has been on display since Saturday, as Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele -- whose ship was taking on water last week from a number of self-inflicted below-the-waterline holes -- thanked his lucky stars for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's own display of foot-in-mouth disease.
Instead of spending the entire duration of his appearances on the Sunday morning talk shows in a crouch, defending himself and his tenure, Steele was allowed to pivot to the moral high ground and go on the attack against Reid.
The whole episode brings to mind one of the few classic political jokes, born of the muck of the 1988 presidential campaign -- a campaign that had been upended by Gary Hart's philandering, Joe Biden's plagiarism, and Mike Dukakis strategist John Sasso's anonymous attack video exposing Biden's plagiarism.
The joke starts out with Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Gary Hart, Joe Biden, and Mike Dukakis -- and their wives and children -- in a boat that springs a massive leak.
"Let's get the women and children to the lifeboat!" cried Carter.
"Screw the women and children!" responded Nixon.
"Do you think we have time?" asked Hart.
"Do you think we have time?" repeated Biden.
"Did everybody hear what Joe Biden just said?" asked Dukakis.