When is a crisis not a crisis?

The answer to the question I pose in the headline above is: when the responsible politician is asked about it. Very occasionally, events are so catastrophic that they oblige a brief period of no-spin truth-telling — the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were an example — but such examples are rare, which is a mercy in one obvious respect.

Mostly, however, calamities inflicted on nations, commonly by hapless leaders who think too highly of their own abilities, are brushed aside as trivial right up to the moment when voters have had enough, and it is the politician who is brushed aside instead.