During this morning’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Benghazi, committee chairman – and likely the next secretary of state – John Kerry said it is clear that “mistakes were made” and that “things have to be done differently” at the State Department. Interestingly, the phrase “mistakes were made” was criticized heavily by Democrats when President Ronald Reagan used it in reference to the the Iran–Contra affair. Democrats believed that the passive and vague nature of the choice of words didn’t directly take responsibility for the administration’s failures.