If nature abhors a vacuum, politics abhors complexity. There has been much discussion and some angst in the press lately about President Barack Obama’s supposed communication breakdown during the financial crisis. The breathless reports convey the impression that he has lost his communication skills altogether. One headline admonished: “Obama struggles as communicator.”

Watching the staple Sunday-morning television shows, you would have thought that the assembled pontificators had a sense of nostalgia for the days of the campaign, when they admitted to feeling “shivers” up their legs when they listened to him, or soaked up the crowds of 50,000 swaying happily to his moving speeches about change we can believe in.