David Axelrod is not a prick.

Truly.

I’ve known him since 2007 and if I had to pick a noun to describe him, it would be mensch.

So when President Biden privately employs that epithet for Axelrod, according to Politico’s Jonathan Martin, it’s bad for a few reasons.

The ordinarily gracious president is punching down at the strategist who helped elevate him onto the ticket with Barack Obama in 2008 and who thinks he was “a great vice president” and has done a lot of wonderful things as president.

When some in the Obama camp chattered in 2011 about switching Biden out for Hillary Clinton, Axelrod said, he protested: “That would be an incredible act of disloyalty to a guy who has done a great job for us.”