That was with regards to him being useless, in his inability to cure cancer, world hunger, etc.
This is different. All heroes during Dark Reign seem unable to remember the existance of tape recorders, unable to recognize Norman's hairtrigger temper as something they can use to discredit him or remember that they've been heroes for much longer than Norman and thus, en mass, would have far greater credability.
New Avengers, IMO, is the worst offender of contrived stupidity. They know who every last member of Norman's Avengers is, yet never considering releasing that information to the media. Clint goes off half cocked against Norman when he hears about what happened to the X-Men, swallowing Norman's account without even trying to reach Wolverine, his own freakin' teammate!