Most people, upon finding themselves in an egregiously deep hole, would just stop digging — but not these guys. President Obama is taking an approval-ratings beating in just about every recent poll out there, with the NBC/WSJ poll that Matthews references pegging Americans’ faith in his honesty and straightforwardness at just 37 percent. The “if you like it, you can keep it” promise is completely exploded, not to mention the gradual chipping away at that pesky little “affordable” part of the grand myth as Americans are discovering their “improved” situations under the law’s new reality — both of which were features, not incidental and unforeseeable side effects, of the law. …And yet, the lesson Axelrod is taking out of all of this is, Hey, President Obama has been completely honest throughout this entire thing, but next time we try to remake one-sixth of the economy in our own grossly incompetent image, we’ll be more careful not to speak in “absolutes,” because there will always be “exceptions. All of the exceptions. Via RCP:

I think part of it is being honest about it, and he has been honest about it. Part of it is getting it fixed as best that you can. There’s no doubt that that is at the core of the problem when you come to this measure, and I think he was ill-served because I’m sure when he said what he said he believed it. When they put the grandfather clause in, he believed that that would take care of these kinds of transitional problems. It didn’t. And, you know, I think the real lesson here is don’t ever speak in absolutes because there’s always going to be an exception and that exception is going to become an example that your opponents lift up. And in this case, there were many examples.