From cave drawings, to picture books, to a ghost tale spoken in hushed tones around a campfire, human beings are always interested in a good story. We begin to truly communicate when our stories have pictures that our audience can see or imagine. It is how we empathize, which is the highest form of listening.

The reason I’ve been thinking about all of this is because of the recent testimony by Deputy Attorney General James Comey, and the impact it’s had on the Alberto Gonzales attorney scandal. Comey’s testimony took an experience that doesn’t conjure up mental imagery—a constitutional crisis of the highest order—and transformed it into a universal image. After all, who can’t imagine an older man, sick and slightly disoriented in his hospital bed, with two able-bodied (and perhaps ill-intentioned) men bursting through the door? That’s certainly much easier for the average American to envision and develop an emotion around than abstract concepts of individual rights and liberties.

Did Comey make the story so easy to understand that we’ve reached a tipping point that will force Gonzales’ exit? As damaging, shocking, and riveting as it was, Comey’s testimony is not itself the final dagger in the heart of the administration—rather, it is one of a thousand pinpricks, albeit a significant one. Before Comey’s testimony, America wondered if Alberto Gonzales was competent. Now we wonder if he is a good man. And that is never a good question to have asked.

Pictures, whether real or imagined, move us closer to the point of action, the tipping point. Just think of My Lai. Abu Ghraib. Tiananmen Square. Valdez, Alaska. Comey’s testimony shows us that the most effective communication means telling a story and creating a picture in the mind of your audience.