It's not an arrogant comment, it's common sense. It's much better not to do dumb things than to do dumb things and then try to fix it. Yes, it's good to fix one's mistakes, but that doesn't mean we should be celebrating those mistakes.
It reminds me of George W. Bush bragging about the success of the "surge" many years into the Iraq war, and I remember thinking, "What a man-child, this guy wants a prize for making a disastrous decision that a bunch of people specifically warned him not to make, and then taking steps to make it slightly less of a hot mess".