Given such thinking, the truth was too much for TV. Not only would people be confused but also the tea party crazies would reenact the summer of 2009, when town-hall meetings turned into circuses of screeching malcontents.

If there’s one thing Barack Obama dislikes more than schmoozing Congress, it’s having to explain his brilliant ideas to mortals of lesser intelligence. Come to think of it, the latter may be viewed as justifying the former — at least from the president’s perspective. Thus, his advisers said, keep it simple for the stupids, though not necessarily with that precise wording.

So they did. So simple, in fact, that it was simply wrong. Did they really think no one would notice when they received cancellation notices and their premiums suddenly doubled on the exchanges?

The other rule of effective apologies is that they must come from authentic remorse rather than at the tip of a sword. Obama had no choice once caught and it was no longer possible to deny reality.