A perfectly brilliant piece sets out the extent to which the Obama administration has shrunk from the real political combat that would bring proper change.
As the author asks: "Barack Obama, where are you?"
On healthcare, the answer, I think, is that the loss of Tom Daschle is beginning to be felt - he could have knocked heads together in a way no-one else really can.
Mark Sanford let me down too. I was hoping a day spent with him recently in the rural idyll that is South Carolina might have been an investment in a relationship with a
future GOP presidential candidate.
Now the day comes down to a visit to a gun shop (we've run out of ammo since Obama took over!) and a nice lunch in Beaufort. But as ever we should overlook individual disappointment to survey the bigger picture: the Republicans have a catastrophic lack of young able leaders who can take on Obama in 2012 as noted here and here.
I hereby challenge someone to come up with a serious name for 2012. First person to post the correct result gets a prize (in 2012). Tempted to offer a free holiday to Argentina but it might have to be something less tangible; respect perhaps.
You can see the Democrats' adverts already if he does ever stand - though it seems tough that a walk in the woods can torpedo an entire presidential bid.
Meanwhile this is a big week for the future of American healthcare and the questions the president has to answer are set out here in a piece that is hostile but fair I think in pointing out the downsides of the British and Canadian systems.
On the other hand, the US system is grotesquely unfair.
The honest answer surely is that there is a price to pay for fairness - care for the richest Americans would, in the future, be curtailed.
This is odd and potentially important because Sanford is one of the real possibles for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, particularly if Obama spending goes haywire.
I wonder if they have looked at solitary men driving tractors in sweltering South Carolina fields -- when I went to see him a few months ago he revealed that -- Gladstone like -- he enjoyed getting out into the great outdoors and re-arranging it. Perhaps that's what he's been doing. We picked up as well that his wife didn't want him to run so maybe he's been sulking.
Meanwhile on Iran, the President has had trouble getting his message out on the local media so has been turning again to us foreigners to charm and cajole.
The outreach to foreign media (which began with the satellite channel Al Arabiya) is now an established part of the Obama strategy, and as the BBC has pointed out, can reap the reward of face time with folks CNN et al cannot reach.
I attended the formal swearing in of Philip Gordon, the new Undersecretary of State for Europe today.
Lovely ceremony, proud family, good speeches. And above all a reminder that this administration is not yet fully staffed!
Bizarre but true: Phil (who is a friend so I will say nothing about his competence and politics) is by no means the last aboard. Others still languish un-confirmed and unable to begin their public service.
And yet, in other respects, the administration is getting old - with some real falling out now among constituencies upset by the compromises made in government and worried that Obama is going the same way on their issues that Kennedy did on civil rights.
I suspect the Obama view is that there is a long, long way to go. He faces no imminent election - and might gain politically if his Democratic friends in Congress get singed a little in 2010 - so he presses on at his pace and with his priorities.
And always the knowledge that the backing he received from the middle ground of politics is fragile and needs to be worked on.
The result of the Iranian election is the worst possible outcome for President Obama.
He could have coped quite cheerfully with an Ahmadinejad loss of course but also with a clean-cut win where he could have expressed respect for the government and moved on.
But now it is difficult for him to deal substantively with a regime that seems so illegitimate - result: stasis.
And the result of that could be growing pressure for any outreach to Iran to come to an end.
The Virginia primary (for this year of course not next!) did not disappoint. Not only was the outcome a surprise but the big money outsider lost and lost badly.
Local control - power wielded by local people; interesting lesson for the UK? A correspondent points out to me as well that as well as term limits (which do indeed have their problems) some states have toyed with forcing legislators to write Bills in plain English -- this apparently reduces the power of lobbyists and decreases the value of experience among the political class. La Reyne le veult, as they say in Westminster.
It ill behoves us - writing here in the afterglow of a wonderfully inspiring election campaign - to sail too close to the jagged rocks that are the British political system. But here goes! In Virginia today (dampened by thunderstorms) voters are going to the polls again in a primary election to select the Democratic candidate for Governor in 2010. It's a competitive race in which any Virginian of any political party may vote. Wonderfully open and energising.
Now you have to be frank about it - without Terry McAuliffe there might have been less interest, indeed there hasn't been that much competition in the past. But still the system is geared up for an open honest fight if the candidates and the electorate want it.
So if for the sake of argument Esther Rantzen turns up in Giggleswick and demands to be on a big party ballot then the local folks - of all parties - get to choose. It gives localites control. It pushes party machines into the ditch.
But here is a further thought. The eventual winner of the race to be Virginia's next governor can only stay in the post for two terms. Term limits, which used to be a fashionable cause on the US right, are making a bit of a comeback and for reasons that British voters might recognise.
They can work in legislatures, and even in a parliamentary system in which the executive is based in the legislature it might still be possible to find a way - 12-year limits perhaps? - of getting new blood circulating constantly. But do they work? As ever there is a downside.
The loudest voices will have no trouble being heard on the Obama speech.
But this slightly quieter one (the perspective of those of any faith/opinion who are chucked in jail by any regime) - is interesting, I think.
UPDATE:
Also interesting to get a hostile perspective from the American left.
Apologies for overstating the extent of Egyptian President Mubarak's time in office - I suppose I could claim he is aiming for 38, but that would be cheap.
The reach of my interview with President Obama - not in hotel rooms but in the real living rooms of real people - was as colossal as we promised the White House.
It went from here to here, via here.
(Interestingly, the first two of those websites can be described as conservative.)
My question (actually the question of a colleague but it is a good one) is this: will this internationalist rationalist president learn this week that much of the outside world is not on board for a quiet sensible chat about what makes sense and what does not.
And an observation after meeting him: he should ditch the search for a church and become a Quaker. Talking to him about family matters (type one diabetes of course) he was sympathetic and engaged and plain-spoken without at any stage being the slightest bit sentimental or gushing.
He reminded me of my mother's friends at home in Bath in the UK - direct and serious.
At some stage he is going to have to decide as well whether or not he believes in American exceptionalism.
I do: not in the sense of superiority but in the sense of qualitative uniqueness. Does he? (Rush - don't answer!)
So on the eve of the big speech to the Muslim world on Thursday, the White House is plainly serious about outreach - that is the main message to take away from the interview I have just conducted with Barack Obama in the White House library.
They chose to speak to us now because they want to reach the parts of the world the BBC reaches - with a message that is nuanced and thoughtful as you would expect, and is not - as the president himself told me - an end but rather a beginning.
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This is not an apology for the actions of the Bush White House - that the president told me flatly.
Nor is it a speech that is designed only to please the audience - the president will talk about the US Muslim community ("huge and thriving" he called it) and point out misperceptions in the Muslim world's view of the US.
But on human rights, I fear he will disappoint: I asked him straight whether Hosni Mubarak (the Egyptian leader for 28 years!) was an autocrat. Mr Obama told me he was a force for stability and good.
The nicest sight in our afternoon in the White House - Sasha and Malia coming home from school. Jolly laughter as in any happy household - though men with wires in their ears prevented us crossing their path as they skipped down the corridor.
We could do with those fellows chez nous...
PS. You can watch the full interview with President Obama here.
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Hello, I'm Justin Webb and I'm the BBC's North America editor.
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