Indeed, as Obama told Newsweek reporter Richard Wolff, “You know, I actually believe my own bulls**t.”

No doubt he believed it, in April 2008, when he assured voters, “We’re not going to run around doing negative ads. We’re going to keep it positive, we’re going to talk about the issues.” By July 2008, Obama was saying that the $4 trillion increase in national debt during the eight years of George W. Bush’s presidency was “unpatriotic.” 

But last month he added a new twist to his tale. He told CBS News that “the mistake of my first term — couple of years — was thinking that this job was just about getting the policy right.” What Obama forgot to do was “to tell a story to the American people.”

What a curious thing to say, particularly for such a storyteller. It amounts to: “I did everything right, but the public can’t see it without a story.”