Barack Obama took office with a promise to create jobs and has reiterated it intermittently, as the national unemployment rate has stayed persistently close to 10 percent.

Yet nearly two years in, Obama and other administration officials still blame the severity of the recession they inherited from their predecessors and recalcitrant Congressional Republicans for uninspiring job growth. Complicating matters is that economists in the president's inner circle too often speak the language of economists, not that of business executives or employees, a disconnect that continues to stall consumer and business confidence.

The pending departure of Lawrence Summers, who will step down as director of the White House National Economic Council at the end of this year, offers the president a chance to retool his message, if not his policies. Summers' replacement should be an experienced business executive with the political savvy to better communicate with businesses. Corporate executives want predictability in public policy. But on the heels of battles over health care, energy and financial reform, most firms are still struggling to figure out the impacts on their income statements.

It's no wonder that businesses question whether the administration appears too easily distracted from what it claims is its No. 1 priority and fully understands how jobs are created. What the administration needs is for private industry to take the lead on replacing the millions of jobs lost to recession. But who can accurately predict the economic landscape, including whether Bush-era tax rates will exist — and for whom — after Dec. 31?

Even the Obama administration's recent package of small-business initiatives, which includes tax credits and small bank loans to small businesses, will arrive so close to the midterm vote that they are viewed cynically as election candy, not part of a serious economic agenda.

And without higher confidence, businesses won't add the massive number of jobs needed to accelerate the recovery.

Summers' replacement may be the president's last opportunity to move in this direction. So far, Obama has stayed in-house to replace other departing members of his economic inner circle. Jack Lew moved from the State Department to replace budget director Peter Orszag. Economist Austan Goolsbee took over for Christina Romer as chair of the Council of Economic Advisors. With only Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner still standing from the original top-tier team, the White House desperately needs to add a business perspective and spokesperson.

Summers' replacement most likely becomes the president's most influential economic adviser. Summers, for example, conducted Obama's Oval Office economic briefings and played traffic cop to economic policy conflicts between other advisors and other branches of government.

The administration needs to stop drowning out its own voice and incorporate a broader view from the top. The right person from business could provide it.

— The Dallas Morning News