The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

It seems that often times when one is feeling overwhelmed in life and he or she is confronted on a mistake they made, an all too common resort is for them to say, "I can't do anything right, can I?" or "I'm always wrong, aren't I?" I've heard several people resort to this and I'm just curious on how common it actually is. I can understand why people would resort to these phrases. It comes across to me as a person reaching their breaking point and temporarily raising the white flag through vocal means as perhaps somewhat of a defense mechanism or an outward cry for sympathy. I think most everyone reaches such a point at least once in their lives, so this kind of thinking and response is quite understandable. However, I also feel it's kind of counterproductive, for when one raises the white flag like that, the issue they were confronted about likely won't get discussed, and what prompted the confrontation in the first place is more likely...