The president’s job approval numbers have hit new lows. That’s actually not the worst news in a new round of polling. The worst news — or what the White House should find most worrisome — is that the president’s character has taken a hit.

For most of the Obama presidency, the majority of Americans have viewed many of his character traits positively, even if they didn’t agree with his politics.

They may have disapproved of his vision for the country and his ability to manage it, but they often simultaneously said that they thought him honest and trustworthy and a strong and decisive leader.

It was a way for some of his most vociferous detractors to say: It’s not personal; it’s political. It’s the Washington version of damning with faint praise.

Now, even that is being diminished. The sloppy rollout of the HealthCare.gov website and the president’s having promised something — “you can keep it” — that turned out not to be true for some is giving license to more Americans to dispense with their character defenses.

According to a Gallup report released Wednesday, the percentage of people judging the president as honest and trustworthy had been around 60 percent for most of his time in office. Now that number stands at 50 percent.

The results of a Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday were even more troubling. It found: “For the first time today, American voters say 52 - 44 percent that Obama is not honest and trustworthy.” The sad part here is that there is merit to people’s dissatisfaction.

The administration has left itself open on the health care law, and its opponents are attacking at every opportunity. At its most noble, politics is the exercise of a government in the interest of people. But at its most practical — and petty — it’s a blood sport.

This is a moment in our politics when the latter dominates.

The White House is now feeling the consequences of floundering, a failure and a fallacy.

These are made-for-media story lines: the mighty, tech-savvy Obama-bots brought to heel by a tech snafu, and the well-spoken president being undone by a “misspoken” promise. A comeuppance for the too-cool commander in chief.

In politics — and pop culture — the news media likes stories that follow a well-worn trajectory: rise, fall and resurrection. Some see this as a fall — or possibly the fall — moment for the Obama administration. And even if it’s not, they will treat it as such for page views and cable ratings.

This is not to say that the administration can’t recover. It can. In fact, in all likelihood it will. And when it does, that too will be deemed news — the resurrection. But in this moment, the administration must take some lumps as it attempts to limp out of this mess, correct its problems and regain its footing.

That won’t be easy. Now Democrats — some nervous, some simply needling — are lining up with the Republicans to demand changes to the health care law.

In an interview published this week, former President Clinton said: “I personally believe, even if it takes a change in the law, the president should honor the commitment the federal government made to these people and let them keep what they got.” Obama had already signaled that he was open to changes to the law without specifying which ones. But Clinton’s comment went further, specifying a change without acknowledging the difficulty of making such a change now that many of the cancellations have already gone out.

Clinton’s comments have given cover for other Democrats who want to avoid being associated with the Health Care Problem.

Friends to the end(of fair weather).

I have no doubt that the website will eventually be fixed. The only question is whether it will be fixed by the end of November, as the administration has aimed for. A report this week in The Washington Post said: “Software problems with the federal online health insurance marketplace, especially in handling high volumes, are proving so stubborn that the system is unlikely to work fully by the end of the month as the White House has promised, according to an official with knowledge of the project.” Exceeding that date would blow yet another hole in people’s confidence that the administration has a handle on the problem and is capable of fixing it. And that crisis of confidence is what is hurting the president at this moment.

Winston Churchill is credited with saying: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” But in politics, the confidence of the public also counts. The White House can’t afford to lose more of it.