That line of reasoning does have a nice ring to it, eh?

Basically it comes down to what exactly over- and understeer are.

Oversteer is when the rear tires break traction before the fronts. You point the steering wheel a certain angle, and the car turns farther than you intend; hence "over" steer.

Understeer is when the front tires break traction before the rears. You point the steering wheel a certain angle, but the car doesn't turn as much as you intend; hence "under" steer.

Oversteer is generally considered to be a more uncontrollable problem than understeer, especially on a front wheel drive car. Here's an example of what can go wrong.

You're driving on a highway offramp at a reasonable rate of speed, then notice a bunch of cars up ahead are going to make it tough to merge. Your natural reaction is to immediately get off the gas pedal, and perhaps even step on the brake. When this happens, the weight of the car pushes down on the front wheels more, and gives them more traction (the car's inertia means it will want to continue going forward at the same rate of speed rather than slow down like you're trying to do). At the same time, the rear tires have a bunch of weight taken off them, and they lose traction. Since the fronts have all that extra traction and the rears have less than normal, the fronts dig in to the road while the rear end whips around. This is called off-throttle oversteer, and now you're in a ditch. It's an inherent problem with front wheel drive cars. If you put newer (and thus, stickier) tires on the front of a car, the difference in traction front-to-rear will be increased, and the car will be more likely to bite you in the ass.

I could go into why oversteer isn't as big a deal on a rwd car but I've already gone on too long.