In her column for tomorrow's Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan makes an astute observation about the Obama presidency--one that also presents a puzzle, which this column will endeavor to solve.

The observation is that Obama's presidency was permanently damaged by the way he and his men reacted to "the trash-talking some Republican leaders indulged in after the 2008 campaign." As examples, Noonan cites then-Sen. Jim DeMint's comment that he expected ObamaCare to be "his Waterloo" and Sen. Mitch McConnell's...