Archives for September 2010

So Rahm Emanuel is off. Will he be replaced by Peter Rouse or Tom Donilon? The economy may be spluttering and Afghanistan on the brink but the Washington media are obsessed by the imminent departure of the White House chief of staff, who is likely to try to become Mayor of Chicago.

It is good soap opera for those of us who live and breathe the politics of this town but does it merit the attention it gets? Not just from insider tip sheets The Hill and Politico but the British media too.

It's a contrast with the coverage of the nuts and bolts of politics in the rest of the world. The leader of Europe's biggest economy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, would have to fire her entire cabinet to attract the sort of attention that Mr Emanuel's planned and fairly routine departure will get.

So does it matter? Only if it affects how Mr Obama does his job or what he does. It won't affect the latter at any rate. This is nothing to do with policy. But perhaps the personalities matter.

It's not only the chief of staff who is going. Long-term senior advisor David Axelrod is off as well, heading back to Chicago to plan the president's 2012 re-election campaign. Three senior economic advisors have already gone, including the forceful Larry Summers. National Security Advisor Gen Jim Jones may depart and so will, at some point, Defence Secretary Robert Gates.

The last three jobs are important in themselves. As for the others, they're important if the president comes to feel he has fewer friends around. It is not exactly bunker White House yet, but if Mr Obama replaces them with more Chicago insiders it may feel increasingly like that.

One perceptive observer remarks that the Obama team does its job with a grudging sense of duty, rather than a fizz of excitement. He quotes Churchill that meeting FDR was "like uncorking a bottle of champagne", and Churchill knew his champagne.

These days Mr Obama may seem more like the cod liver oil that is good for you, but certainly not taken for fun. Many of you have observed that Mr Obama's problem is his policies, not his style. To some, that is obviously true. But it is the others, those who once were believers that matter. From the president's point of a view, a new team which communicates a sense of verve would be no bad thing.

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President Obama is back on tour this week, trying to conjure up some of the old magic.

I doubt he will do it in his first stop in New Mexico where he is holding one of his slightly uncomfortable garden gatherings, in which he roams the lawn clutching a microphone, dressed in white shirt sleeves, expounding on his economic policy to overwhelmed-looking loyalists sitting around him in deck chairs.

I wonder if, even awed by celebrity, some will have trouble staying awake in the heat of an Indian summer. Certainly these events haven't been a wake-up call to a nation. Although no doubt it is pretty impressive for those actually crammed into their neigbours' gardens, it rarely makes an impact beyond the dutiful coverage of live cable TV.

He might do better with the next day's event at a college town in Wisconsin when we are promised a rally like in the days of yore. Some think this is about getting out the youth vote although one event does not convince me.I can't see a pattern or much of a purpose. It is all a bit strange, this lack of a clear strategy, and the New York Times thinks it is the mark of a White House that doesn't take its politics seriously enough.

This rings true, and is supported by Bob Woodward's new book Obama's wars. I've only just brought my copy and unlike the president's spokesman Robert Gibbs I doubt I will read it in a night.The last few pages of Franzen's Freedom beckon when I am done with you, anyhow. But the passage that sprang out at me was not the stuff that we have already turned into headlines, but this :

John Podesta (head of Obama's transition team and former Clinton chief of staff) "compared Obama to Spock from Star Trek. ... Podesta was not sure Obama felt anything, especially in his gut. He intellectualized and then charted the path forward, essentially picking up the emotions of others and translating them into ideas"

It is rarely good for a politician to lack gut instincts. But at the moment it is the president who needs a good translator, to turn his his ideas into emotion that inspires others.

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Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been at it again. At a news conference today he repeated his call for an investigation into the 9/11 attacks. Despite what the networks insist on broadcasting, he didn't actually say the US government was behind the murderous attacks, he said it was one of three theories and most Americans, and most people, believe it. I'm sure he was well aware most would not bother with this subtlety and today said:

Something happened and that event was the pretext for the invasion of two countries. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed as a result. Don't you think that that we need to explore the real reason for 9/11... to look at that excuse?

In his interview with the BBC Persian service today, President Barack Obama's anger seemed unfeigned. He said:

It was offensive. It was hateful. And particularly for him to make the statement here in Manhattan, just a little north of Ground Zero, where families lost their loved ones, people of all faiths, all ethnicities who see this as the seminal tragedy of this generation, for him to make a statement like that was inexcusable.

And it stands in contrast with the response of the Iranian people when 9/11 happened, when there were candlelight vigils and I think a natural sense of shared humanity and sympathy was expressed within Iran. And it just shows once again sort of the difference between how the Iranian leadership and this regime operates and how I think the vast majority of the Iranian people who are respectful and thoughtful think about these issues.

So in a sense it played into his hands, the last point his theme of the day. BBC Persian broadcasts to around 10 million people in Iran, and Mr Obama's message was directed at them, an effort to persuade that his quarrel wasn't with them but with their leaders, and in particular their president. He suggested one of the reason the west and Russia were so worried were because of odd outbursts like this.

Then my colleague Bahman Kalbasi asked him what is for many the key question.

For a lot of Iranians who are looking at how this scenario is playing out, many see similarities to the run-up to the Iraq War. You know, a succession of UN resolutions, toughened economic sanctions, on-and-off talk about war and a military strike. What do you say to those who are worried that they'll wake up to a military attack by America or Israel?

Mr Obama replied:

Well, I think what people should remember is that I don't take war lightly. I was opposed to the war in Iraq. I am somebody who's interested in resolving issues diplomatically.

He went on:

So the Iranian government itself has said 'we are not interested in nuclear weapons'. That's their public statement. If that's the case, there should be a mechanism whereby they can assure and prove to the international community, including the IAEA, that that is in fact the case. And if they take those constructive steps in serious negotiations, then not only should there not be a threat of war but there also won't be the sanctions that are currently in place.

This may not be tempting for Mr Ahmadinejad, Iran's 9/11 Truther in Chief, but some in Iran's complex democracy and ruling classes may like the thought of sanctions being lifted. Despite the harsh words and calculated insults even Mr Ahmadinejad did suggest that the European Union set up talks for next month. It is true that his remarks were as cryptic as ever and hedged with caveats. But low-level contacts between Iran and the EU were going on the whole time. The US and the world are in no mood for another war, and Mr Obama would be loathe to be the president to start one. That doesn't mean Israel will not act alone, but I suspect this will remain a war of words for some time to come.

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New York
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seems keener on offending the US than talking to it. He provoked a walkout with a line from the "truther" movement, when he said most of the world believed the US government had launched the 9/11 attacks in order to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.

The State Department replied:

Rather than representing the aspirations and goodwill of the Iranian people, Mr Ahmadinejad has yet again chosen to spout vile conspiracy theories and anti-Semitic slurs that are as abhorrent and delusional as they are predictable.

It is perhaps very small comfort that Mr Ahmadinejad went on to say that Iran had always been ready for dialogue.

But in his address, President Barack Obama seemed to me to strike a softer line than often in the past. He told the United Nations General Assembly:

The US and the international community seek a resolution to our differences with Iran, and the door remains open to diplomacy should Iran choose to walk through it. But the Iranian government must demonstrate a clear and credible commitment, and confirm to the world the peaceful intent of its nuclear programme.

The important point was what he did not say: "or else". I have never heard Mr Obama talk about the issue of Iran's apparent plan to develop nuclear weapons without talking about sanctions, sometimes adding that "other options" were on the table.

This seems to me a slightly milder public line which might support rumours and reports in Israeli newspapers that at some low level the US and Iran are beginning talks on the margins of the United Nations.

It may be no more than rumour. A colleague of mine who is well plugged into the Middle East believes Mr Obama simply doesn't want to add to the drum beat of war when the region is already very tense. And the west thinks things are shifting in Iran although even very experienced diplomats seem at a loss explaining which factions are backing what shift.

We may learn more when Mr Obama gives an interview to BBC Persian tomorrow. Watch this space.

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President Barack Obama is planning to give supporters of the Palestinians a bit of a talking to, at the UN today.

He says pessimists and cynics can scoff at the difficulties of the current peace talks but if an agreement is not reached, the Palestinians will never know the pride and dignity of having their own state, and Israel won't know safety and security.

But there's frustration with Arab States in the Middle East, who the White House believes pay extravagant emotional lip service to the Palestinian cause but very little practical or diplomatic help.

"Many in this hall count themselves as friends of the Palestinians. But these pledges must now be supported by deeds. Those who have signed on to the Arab Peace Initiative should seize this opportunity to make it real by describing and demonstrating the normalisation that it promises Israel. Those who speak out for Palestinian self-government should help the Palestinian Authority with political and financial support, and - in so doing - help the Palestinians build the institutions of their state. And those who long to see an independent Palestine rise must stop trying to tear Israel down."

And he will go on:

"After thousands of years, Jews and Arabs are not strangers in a strange land. And after 60 years in the community of nations, Israel's existence must not be a subject for debate. Israel is a sovereign state, and the historic homeland of the Jewish people. It should be clear to all that efforts to chip away at Israel's legitimacy will only be met by the unshakeable opposition of the United States. And efforts to threaten or kill Israelis will do nothing to help the Palestinian people - the slaughter of innocent Israelis is not resistance, it is injustice. Make no mistake: the courage of a man like President Abbas - who stands up for his people in front of the world - is far greater than those who fire rockets at innocent women and children."

Not yet sure if this is the real guts of his speech or there will be more on other subjects like Iran. More later.

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I am sure Bob Woodward's Obama's Wars will be a riveting read, but does it tell us anything new about the president's Afghan policy?

I can't help feeling the headlines about "in-fighting" are a bit lazy. When big egos debate big policies, tempers are bound to fray. It's soap opera for the political classes but only matters if the relationships become so bad they are dysfunctional, or the disagreements about policy are profound and lasting.

I think we are not yet at the former stage but the second is much nearer the mark.

The book paints a picture of a president determined to get out of Iraq, telling one meeting: "I'm not doing 10 years. I'm not doing long-term nation-building. I am not spending a trillion dollars." He is also quoted as saying: "This needs to be a plan about how we're going to hand it off and get out of Afghanistan."

Another quote - "I can't lose the whole Democratic Party" - suggests his enthusiasm for an exit strategy was partly fuelled by domestic politics. If I was a Republican strategist I would make a meal of this, although they don't yet seem to have noticed.

The White House has not quarrelled with any of substance, saying Obama's Wars portrays a commander-in-chief who is analytical, strategic and decisive.

But it is the way the military apparently pushed back against a clear exit strategy that is important, and critical for the future. The relationship with General David Petraeus comes across as particularly bad, with the man who was then head of US Central Command and is now the big chief in Afghanistan telling his staff the administration was "expletive deleted-ing with the wrong guy".

Obama is portrayed as deeply frustrated with the constant military desire to expand the mission, eventually issuing a six-page document attempting to tie its leaders to the agreed policy. When they then tried to get more troops he responded, according to the New York Times, "I'm done doing this!" - which the Washington Post renders as an exasperated "why do we keep having these meetings!"

This clash with the military matters for the future. Given that US special envoy Richard Holbrooke is quoted as saying the current strategy "can't work". What happens if he's right and by this time next year it obviously hasn't worked?

Here I have to enter a note of caution. The BBC hasn't been able to get hold of a copy of the book yet, so it all feels a bit post-modern, working off two subtly different reports of an invisible text.

But in the original report of the New York Times (published and then pulled from its website), Gen Petraeus is quoted as saying that once the mission was in place he could get "more time on the clock". Obama's top adviser tells him that is seriously misreading the president. Why this has disappeared from the current report, I have no idea. But if true, it seems to me really important, a suggestion that Obama's wars, with the military, are not at an end.

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Oh what late-night shenanigans there must have been between America's two great newspapers last night.

The journalistic world has been on tenterhooks awaiting the book Obama's War from Bob Woodward, the Watergate veteran, who over the years has had superb access to all the main players in several presidents' administrations and has now emerged with a scathing portrait.

Politico has an excellent description of how he gets the scoops.

But the New York Times cheekily got hold of a copy of the book by Woodward, who just happens to be an editor of the Washington Post.

The Times's story was published online around 2200 local time. About an hour and a half later, it had been pulled.

Then the Post published its own less exciting but longer take on the book.

At 0011 the New York Times story reappeared with a few of the more interesting quotes absent.

All very "inside the Beltway" I know - and a field day for lawyers - and a big plug for the book.

More later on the importance or otherwise of the revelations.

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Inside the White House he has apparently shown all the arrogance and self confidence you would expect from a man who went to one of America's top universities, MIT, aged 16 and became one of the youngest ever professors at another, Harvard. By all accounts when Obama calls a meeting, Summers dominates the room; brilliant and aggressive to the point of rudeness, impatient if he believes some one is waffling, delighted not just to pick, but smash holes, in other people's arguments, without necessarily coming up with a better plan himself. The President says he will miss him.

"I will always be grateful that at a time of great peril for our country, a man of Larry's brilliance, experience and judgment was willing to answer the call and lead our economic team. Over the past two years, he has helped guide us from the depths of the worst recession since the 1930s to renewed growth. And while we have much work ahead to repair the damage done by the recession, we are on a better path thanks in no small measure to Larry's wise counsel."

Summers is the prism through which the president sees economic policy. It is he who presents the regular morning economic briefings, synthesising and summing up the reports, statistics and views of other economic experts. He even blocked the revered former chairman of the Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker from having direct access to the president. Everything has to be filtered, and he is the filter. Although there have been clashes with his old special assistant, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, the two men seem to enjoy the intellectual rough house and were the driving force behind pouring money into the economy, in an effort to stop it going under. For conservatives who believe there is a big government takeover, they are main culprits.
Nothing sinister should be read into his departure. It doesn't signal a change of policy, it is certainly not a sacking, although their might be a mild bit of election tactics about the timing.

Mid-term burn out is predictable, and he was always expected to return to Harvard at some point. He's been at the centre of the maelstrom for three years, and he would claim, helped design a way out of it. Some sleep might be nice. Some on the left see him as far too close to Wall Street and will be glad to see him go. Those on the right who disapprove of the stimulus package and bailouts he helped design will also be cheering.

But with many economists worried about the direction in which the country is heading his replacement will be important, and scrutinised in minute detail to discover what their appointment says about future policy. I suspect for Obama it might be just as important to find a big enough personality to fill the gap he leaves. Summers almost gone, what the Autumn brings may tell us whether it is going to be a hard winter.

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If it's not hurting, it's not working. But does the US government really think the economic sanctions against Iran are painful enough to make them abandon what the West believes is a quest for nuclear weapons?

President Obama is expected to use his speech to the United Nations on Thursday to stress that it's not America that has a quarrel with Iran, it is the whole international community. According to one senior administration official he'll make it clear, as he did last year at the same time, that "the door is open to engagement".

"The door is open to them having a better relationship with the United States and with the international community," the official said. "However, in order to walk through that door, Iran is going to have to demonstrate its commitment to show its peaceful intent around its nuclear program and to meet its obligations to the international community."

It is almost certain that the Iranian president, who speaks the same day, will not walk through this door. But Mr Obama is presumably not planning to ramp up threats of something more robust than sanctions, given that he has just told a televised Town Hall-style meeting that: "We don't think that a war between Israel and Iran or military options would be the ideal way to solve this problem. But we are keeping all our options on the table."

So what's going on here? The US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice says that the cost of the sanctions to Iran is very real ("concrete and meaningful" is what she actually said) and "it's beginning to be acknowledged even in the domestic political debate inside of Iran. We expect that these measures will increasingly influence the course that the Iranian decision-makers pursue."

That's a bit on the cryptic side, but it sounds as if she's suggesting the sanctions, which are aimed directly at the Revolutionary Guard and the elite, are hurting enough to cause ructions within the Iranian government. It sounds as if the US administration is expecting that factions within Iran's complex power structure will haul Ahmadinejad into line, or even off the stage.

I can't help wondering whether that's based on sound intelligence reports from inside Iran, or the audacity of hope.

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I mean no disrespect towards the Congressman for the sixth district of Indiana but I wouldn't give a penny for Pence's chances.

But Conservatives gathered in Washington this weekend liked the cut of his jib and want him to be the next US president.

A straw poll of the Values Voter conference found 24% wanted Mike Pence as the Republican candidate in 2012.

Last year's poll winner Mike Huckabee got 22%, Mitt Romney 13%, Newt Gingrich 10% and Sarah Palin just 7%. Haley Barbour took a measly 1%.

I am not sure how influential or representative this Christian Conservative pressure group is but it attracts star speakers and a lot of national media attention. It is at the very least an indication of how open the race is to new names.

The search for a Republican candidate will be intense. In 2008, everyone thought of Barack Obama as a two-term president and that 2012 would be a dull contest. Now it looks as if he can be beaten, and much will hang on who the Republicans pick.

President Obama is already reminding people that this year's elections are not a referendum on him, but a choice between two alternatives. That will be even more true in 2012.

Some Democratic strategists like Robert Shrum think the Tea Party movement's huge influence will save him and rule out more electable candidates.

They are perhaps whistling in the dark. The Republicans do, of course, run the danger of electing someone unable to attract middle of the road voters but it is not a simple equation.

That's why new characters without much baggage will attract attention. Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels is apparently considering throwing his hat in the ring. Bobby Jindal may have made a disastrous speech answering Mr Obama's state of the union but he has handled the Gulf crisis with passion and commitment.

A lot can happen in the next months. After all, before I arrived on these shores I would have put a few pennies on Jon Huntsman or Mark Sandford. I would have lost my stake. The former was sent to China, in a smart move by Mr Obama, the latter found true love in South America and imploded in scandal.

The Republicans need what intelligence services call "a clean skin" and I suspect that means lots of jostling in the party ranks over the next few months.

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Well, she won't and she will. I'm not holding my breath for any newsworthy announcement today. But it's all just part of the political striptease that keeps us bug-eyed, leaning forward on the edge of our seats. As I have written before, I do not have the slightest doubt that she will eventually reveal all and make a pitch to be the Republican presidential candidate in 2012. I am not alone. But here are some other views.

She's already half-way there. It is one of the peculiarities of American politics that there is no official leader of the opposition for most of the political cycle. By dint of personality and popularity the leader of the House, or the Senate or the party chairman could be seen as the most important Republican figure. Often there is no-one of that stature. But it is Palin who has made herself the leader of, not just the opposition, but the Republican resurgence.

She is the star speaker Iowa Republicans wanted for their big dinner. She has made the primary season her triumph, anointing or withholding love. She has, along with the Tea Party movement, pushed her party to the right. And, yes, it is she who fascinates many in the media, including me.

Part of her appeal to Tea Party people is the cultivated image that she is guileless, gee golly gosh, not like those calculating politicians in Washington, she just tells it straight, readin' off her little ole hand, not them fancy teleprompts.

She told Fox News this week that she wasn't trying to be a kingmaker. "I don't even know how to play those type[s] of games. And I don't have the people, the machine, the whatever-it-takes to be in a position like that."

As she is a well known fan of Shakespeare, or at least his conjuring of new words, I would say: "Me thinks she doth protest too much." And there is at least some evidence to refudiate her protestations.

She hasn't exclusively endorsed Tea Party candidates against the establishment. Certainly she has in Alaska, Nevada, Delaware and Kentucky to name but a few states. But in New Hampshire, where the vital first primary is held, she did endorse the winner of the Republican race, but not the most conservative candidate, not the Tea Party favourite. The same goes for California and Arizona. Is she cleaving closer to the Republican establishment in big, winnable states? I am not sure if there is a pattern or not.

If she is silent about her intentions, is her cash talking? Out of the $866,000 raised by her political action committee in three months, she has given $87,500 to Republican candidates in this year's election. Some 11% of the money went to Iowa, but one of the biggest sums, $5,000, to the man running to become Republican Governor of Ohio. She also gave money to other key players in that state, which is often seen as a presidential decider.

When, in a different incarnation, I was covering a rather less important presidential campaign, that to become first President of the European Commission, I was told repeatedly by wise old birds: "The front-runner never wins." In America that doesn't seem to be true. The front-runner has an advantage. But there is a long way to go. If Sarah Palin's more right-wing picks, in Delaware and Nevada, fail to knock vulnerable Democrats off their perch she will take some of the blame. But I suspect we will be seeing her in Iowa a few more times in the next couple of years.

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California is dreaming no longer.

From the air, you can see how the glitter has rubbed off the Golden State.

The Pasadena police are on patrol in a helicopter, not on the look-out for drug smugglers or cars speeding along the highways - but signs of the American dream turning green.

There is a scattering below of deep blue rectangles, swimming pools, which get used all year long thanks to California's idyllic weather.

But the economic climate is not so hot, and some of the pools have turned the disgusting murky colour of an algae-covered mud bath.

Down on the ground, the pool isn't just unappealing for those fancying a dip - it is a real health hazard, a breeding ground for mosquitoes.

De Andre, the man in charge of cleaning them up, says this often happens because homes have been repossessed, but also because people can no longer afford the upkeep of their pools.

The personal tragedy of unemployment and repossession has combined with what some say is years of government over-spending to leave the state in a parlous condition.

If California was a country in its own right, it would be the eighth-largest economy in the world. As it is, the Golden State is bust, without a budget.

Deep cuts have already been made in education and other public services.

Outgoing Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger says the state should follow Britain's example and make more cuts and promise no tax rises.

Many in California blame generous pensions for state employees for draining resources.

But in Oakland, San Francisco's rougher sister across the Bay Bridge, the leader of the local police union, Dom Arotzarena, says that the cuts will damage the local economy.

He says that the city already has one of the highest crime rates in America and cutting 80 police jobs and stopping all recruitment is bound to make Oakland a more dangerous place.

He also says that when the city wants to attract more retail business to the area, that can't help.

Other union representatives told me it was because of California's tax system that the state had gone bust.

In particular, they single out the law that flows from a 1978 referendum.

Proposition 13 means that property tax cannot be more than 1% of value.

I put this point about tax to Carly Fiorina, the former millionaire boss of Hewlett Packard who is now running as California's Republican candidate for the US Senate. Below is her response:

You can also hear my report on BBC Radio 4's Today programme or see it on tonight's BBC News at Ten, part of a BBC series on the spending review. (Update on 15/9/10: Due to technical reasons, ie too much other news, this has now been postponed)

But I left California feeling no-one really had a clear idea of where the state was heading, or what the solutions should be.

There is a legal requirement not to run up a deficit, a political determination not to raise taxes and an awareness that this is a difficult time to cut jobs, when unemployment is already high.

Perhaps California is still dreaming, rather than waking up to a new reality.

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The former Speaker and possible contender for the Republican nomination in 2012 endorses a rather odd if entertaining Forbes article that claims the president sees the world through a "Kenyan, anti-colonial" lens, indeed through the eyes of his father who is described as "a philandering, inebriated African socialist".

Newt is quoted as asking: "What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behaviour, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?

"That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behaviour."

This despite the fact that Obama hardly met the father who is meant to have so influenced him.

Dr Gingrich, a historian by training, has earned the contempt of several commentators who point out that traditionally the US has been rather anti colonialist.

Indeed, while many on the left accuse the US of being a colonial power, it is not often that leading American politicians suggest that it is, and should be.

But it raises an intriguing possibility and a whole new level of responsibility for David Cameron.

If Newt became president would he hand the 50 states back to British control, in his effort to undo "anti colonialism"?

Perhaps, having abolished the office of president he could stay on as Lieutenant Governor of the new British Empire's regained territory.

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Obama will never again recover the glory days of his presidential campaign and the warm after glow of victory. But even glimpses of the old magic have been few and far between in the last year. But there were a couple of flashes of something special last week.

His Labor Day speech and Ohio pitch laced his economic narrative with emotion. His speech marking 9/11 was both serious and passionate. All three were a cut above his often pedestrian professorial addresses, which read pretty well, but appeal to logic, not voters.

The story he set out was a clear one. When he came into office there was a huge economic mess, left by the Republicans and their failed policies. Because of his decisions things were getting better, even if far too slowly. But the choice was not between him and a perfect recovery, but between Democrats and the same old Republican policies that caused the problem in the first place. He called on Republicans not to hold the country to ransom by demanding the continuation of Bush's tax cuts for the better-off as a price for voting for middle-class tax cuts.

The Republicans have spotted this last trap, and are preparing to leap over it. The House Republican leader has said he would vote for the wider tax cuts, without the continuation of the one for people on more than $250,000. But his party can't avoid the trap altogether. When it springs shut it will make Obama look as though he is pushing the Republicans into some of sort of bipartisanship while not budging himself. Again, perhaps not appealing to independents, but natural Democrats should cheer.

It is far too soon to say whether Obama's fightback will have any impact on the dismal predictions about his party's fortunes, but he has lowered himself to engage in political tactics and descended from the seminar room with his boxing gloves on. That in itself is a rare enough sight, to give some pause.

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President Barack Obama has explained why he dealt so directly with a small Florida church's plan to burn copies of the Koran, and he addressed the concern that his response creates a situation in which any fringe group can grab the attention of the White House and the world by making such threats.

The news conference was dominated by questions about the economy, but the president made it clear that the burn threat could do "profound damage" to America's national interest.

"The idea that we would burn the sacred text of someone else's religion is contrary to what this country stands for," he said.

He was asked why nine years after 9/11, America seems more uneasy about Islam than ever before. He replied that at a time when the country was anxious, fears and divisions could surface. He said that one of the things he admired most about former President George W Bush was his insistence that America was not at war with Islam but with killers and terrorists.

He talked of his own Christian faith and said he understood religion could provoke passion, but that America was one nation under God, whatever the name of that God.

Asked directly if he had "elevated" the pastor, he said that he didn't want a situation where anyone in the country who wanted attention could get it by threatening to burn a Koran. But he said as commander in chief of the US military, he had a clear duty to send a message. It is indeed an awkward dilemma, and while the president will be criticised for speaking out, not answering the questions clearly would be unthinkable. Expressing his concern doesn't really answer whether he will speak out every time someone proposes a similar stunt.

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There's something grotesque about the man who's in day-to-day charge of the most powerful military force the world has ever known having to lift the phone and plead with an eccentric pastor with a flock of around 50.

But Robert Gates did just that, telling Pastor Jones that his Koran burning stunt was putting US servicemen and women at grave risk. Earlier, the president had used an ABC interview to make a direct appeal to Terry Jones "if he was listening".

Perhaps the pressure from the top was too much. At any rate, Mr Jones announced that the Koran burning would be abandoned because the imam in charge had agreed to move the planned Islamic cultural centre near Ground Zero.

This is not true, it turns out. It appears a Florida Muslim leader had spoken to the wife of the New York imam, who said he wasn't available for a meeting before Saturday. On this premise was built the idea that he would give up his plans. But if Terry Jones was looking for a way out, then this flimsy pretext provided it.

But how come an extremist planning a book-burning that would disgrace any time after the Middle Ages has some of the top politicians in the West jerking around like puppets on a string ?

Is it the fault of the 24-hour media that has focused on this planned demonstration by a tiny number of people?

Is it the fault of those even more extreme who might react to an offensive display by murder and terrorism?

Is it the fault of General Petraeus for catapulting this into the headlines in the first place?

Not the last at any rate. The general, and Gates, and the president, realise that the pastor's stunt threatens the very basis of their whole strategy in Afghanistan, Pakistan and indeed the rest of the Muslim world.

They are stressing it is the bomber and killers who are the enemy, not Islam. They've been much more explicit, but it was at the heart of what Bush said as well.

It's not just how those willing to use violence might react, it is that the act would "prove" to many in the Islamic world that Americans were against their religion itself.

It would be better if the threat could have just been ignored and dismissed but everyone knows that if the bonfire was lit, it would be beamed around the world - if not by the main TV networks, by videophone and the internet. Fanatics on both sides of the divide would have used it to inflame the cultural war they so desperately want.

However distasteful it might be, whatever terrible precedents it might set, America's politicians could hardly have remained silent. At least the Muslim world should now have heard, loud and clear, that this is not the will of America, but something that disgusts its leaders.

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President Obama has spoken out against the planned Koran burning, joining those who say it is un American and will put US troops at risk.

"I just hope he understands that what he's proposing to do is completely contrary to our values as Americans. That this country has been built on the notions of religious freedom and religious tolerance. And as a very practical matter, as commander of chief of the armed forces of the United States, I just want him to understand that this stunt that he is talking about pulling could greatly endanger our young men and women in uniform who are in Iraq, who are in Afghanistan."

The president hasn't exactly been in the vanguard of those condemning the burning. From the White House's point of view it is understandable that they wanted plenty of cover, so the president's intervention would add pressure on the preacher, rather than adding flames to another fire. They wouldn't want the president's serious words used as "evidence" supporting absurd urban myths about his own beliefs and sympathies.

So he waited for cover from those who conservatives would respect. Not only the unimpeachable military view of General Petraeus, but the avatar of the Tea Party right herself, Sarah Palin.

The president said he hoped the incendiary Pastor would listen to his "better angels". Those beings do appear to have been remarkably busy, encouraging the most bipartisan moment I can think of, since arriving here just over a year ago.

A random check on some of the most rabidly anti-Islamic internet sites indicates that they don't want to get involved, either reporting factually or skirting the subject. As far as I can see no one anywhere near the mainstream has supported the planned burning. But Sarah Palin's latest tweet does suggest there should be a balance in condemnation: "Book burning=bad;Cleric running 4 Afghan Parliament calling 4 murder of US children n response 2 scorched Korans=worse. Where's media focus?"

The moment of bipartisan agreement will be fleeting. Being an angel must be hard work.

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San Francisco

Gary Kremen is enthusiastic about his business past and present, if a little gloomy about the state of the economy and the economy of his state. He tells me he has made his fortune by "creating love around the planet". His first online business, dating agency Match.com, was a huge success, and he sold it for millions. In a very Californian way he moved on to the next success, making more money buying up a collection of website names including housing.com and sex.com.

He is exactly the sort of wealthy business person who benefited from the Bush tax cuts. President Barack Obama is making it clear to his audience today that he is not going to extend them, despite the worries of even some Democrats that this will damage the fragile recovery.

Mr Kremen's latest passion and investment is a company called CrowdFlower. I've never been to a Silicon Valley-style start-up before, but I am told the one we are in is typical, even if it is in San Francisco's Mission district rather than the valley itself.

You walk straight through the front door into a large open space with a high ceiling. Young men - and a couple of women - sit at long tables topped with Apple computers of various different sizes. There's a hubbub, people talking about their music projects, some about work, others just chatting. It's very relaxed. Reception, if there is one, is another young man, heavily tattooed and pierced, sitting to one side at another smaller table.

CrowdFlower is a new idea. The people in this room out-source repetitive tasks for other companies to people who do them from their homes for a few cents a task.

The projects are enormous in scale but each individual task takes just a few minutes. Some of the workers are in America, others are not. Some are college kids wanting to earn a few dollars. Some are refugees who might have lost a home but still have a laptop or a mobile phone.

They are engaging in big projects like finding the opening time of every petrol station in America and the start dates of every college, or comparing the merits of new search engines. The sooner the companies want their information, the more they pay.

What does Mr Kremen think about Mr Obama's plan to scrap the tax break for those earning more than $250,000 (£161,801), which he is talking about in Ohio today? At first he says he is ambivalent, then continues:

There is definitely one school of thought that a rising tide lifts all ships. I partially agree: the rich tend to be more job-creating. It depends who they are. The dividend-receiving people may not be job-growth people compared to the capital gains people, like start-ups.

If the tax cut were taken away would he personally create fewer jobs?

On the margin, yes, I think that's true. It may not be a 50% effect but a 10-15% effect. With the lack of jobs around that makes a difference.

So he really wouldn't spend as much money?

Why should I take the risk? Maybe I should hold onto it.

He says ending the tax break is a bad move when the country may already be in a double-dip recession.

Of course this is the view of one man, but in all the debate I hadn't seen the views of entrepreneurs themselves so I thought it worthwhile asking one. Some others we contacted at first said personal taxation wasn't an issue, it was corporate tax rates that worried them. Most turned us down for an interview.

This is going to be a very tough fight for Mr Obama. It looks political, targeting the rich when not much revenue is to be raised. I suspect he will have to spell out where he would spend the new money. Increasingly the president is setting out a clear difference, a choice between him and his opponents. It is not too late for him to shift the conversation ahead of this year's elections and to use his position to change the tone and frame the debate, but this is all really about 2012.

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Glendale, California

The day after President Barack Obama's big speech announcing more spending to create employment I am in the Verdugo Jobs Center in California, which serves an area with a population of about 330,000.

Eric Thomas has been unemployed for nine months. He's a welder who has retrained as a forklift truck driver.

He is ambivalent about the president's plan. He thinks updating the rail lines is a good idea and might provide work for him, but he says he is against the idea of building for the sake of building and worries that any jobs created will not last very long. What happens then, he asks. What he wants is some stability and a permanent job.

Talking to people in the centre is a reminder of how different America is to Britain. Mr Thomas' unemployment benefit ran out some time ago, and he's now living off his savings.

A woman named Carol who is in her 50s tells us she has been out of work for six years and can live on her savings for another two before it will all be gone. She doesn't know what she will do then and worries about becoming homeless.

Annie Birthistle has been searching for work for two years. She too relies on her savings, plus some money from her parents.

She is a health care worker who looks after older people in their own homes. She finds with the recession some families are tending to look after their elderly relatives themselves rather than pay for outside help. She seems vaguely in favour of spending to stimulate the economy, but, like Mr Thomas, is more concerned about the ends than the means. I ask her what she would say to the president if she could talk to him.

"Just be more aware of the little people like us who are trying to do the best, to help us help the economy grow," she says. "I don't really have an answer, but just to be more aware of people like us."

This is at least one of Mr Obama's problems. Some of the people most deeply affected by the recession no longer feel that he understands their plight, they do not care much about the detailed arguments about stimulus and tax cuts, but just want the outlook to improve.

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President Obama is honouring Labor Day, when most working men and women stop their labours and have a BBQ with the family, by trying to create new opportunities for labour. Not that he can have much realistic expectation of getting the $50bn he wants spent on road, rail and airports through Congress.

If it's unlikely before the mid-term elections in November, it's even less likely afterwards when the Democrats may have lost control of both houses. I must admit that statement is a little ludicrous: Obama doesn't exactly have political control now of the fractious and greedy lot, but the Democrats do at least have an arithmetical advantage.

So his announcements this week are all about positioning, and appealing to working class men in particular. His message in the next two months, and more importantly the next two years, will be: The Republicans robbed us of recovery.

With not only Britain and much of Europe, but individual states in the US making deep cuts, he sometimes seems like the last Keynesian standing. Like the creature in Dr Dolittle the US faces both ways at the same time - a push-me-pull-you economy where the federal government tries to stimulate by spending and many individual States make deep cuts to balance their budgets.

I am off to California to see how this works in practice. Not quite sure when the piece will be broadcast, either the end of this week when Obama gives a news conference, or early next. But I hope to file snippets for this blog as I go.

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I've got a feeling that Sarah Palin fever is about to mount again.

She's going to Iowa to speak at a Republican fundraiser on 17 September. Iowa is the first critical state for any presidential hopeful. But she's dismissed as "idiot reporters" those who suggest she pursued the chance to speak, rather than being pursued by those who wanted to invite her.

Sarah Palin's first book is just out in paper back, and there's a new one on the way.

Then there's a long, hostile profile in Vanity Fair arguing that "anywhere you peel back the skin of Sarah Palin's life, a sad and mouldering strangeness lies beneath".

This sounds intriguing and there are some interesting tidbits. Palin is known as the "North Star" to her staff, is a bad tipper, and may believe angels protect her from demonic attack.

But the thrust - that she's extravagant, vindictive, and rather more bad tempered in private than in public - is no surprise and only confirms that she is much more like many other political operators than her fans would like to admit.

It doesn't really deal with her future beyond pointing out that Glenn Beck has hired a big hall in Alaska on 11 September, and she will speak. The dynamic duo are becoming something of an item. Talk about a balanced ticket. But the article plants the thought that she could use it to make a big announcement about her presidential ambitions.

This seems unlikely to me. There is no need, and no advantage, that I can see for jumping so early. But it did get me thinking about Sarah Palin's strategy. I have never bought the idea that she will flirt with running only to turn her back on politics for media stardom and wealth. She drips political ambition and neither money nor fame are incompatible with political power in America.

But up to now I have accepted the conventional wisdom that she will be easily beaten in the primaries of 2012. To the Republican hierarchy and commentators it is obvious that she can't win the middle ground and so can't win a presidential race against President Barack Obama. QED Republicans will reject her in the primaries.

She could have tried to counter this by spending the last year making learned policy speeches and investigating the realities of the great abroad, and generally gone about suggesting she's calmed down a bit.

But she hasn't. The only trimming she has done is to support John McCain against a couple of tea party candidates. Instead she has not just cultivated the base, but cleaved to it, whipping hard core conservatives into a frenzy of contempt for the president - Fox news made flesh.

These are the people who will vote and passion may outweigh calculation. Talk about the big mo, the power of momentum. What sort of potential energy builds when you've been campaigning non-stop not months but years before your rivals? Think of the kinetics unleashed when she does make an announcement. She will have the money and the full attention of the media, whether in fascinated revulsion or slavering worship. Pity the Republican who stands up and suggests it really would be more sensible to choose some one who is more of an insider, more moderate and measured.

I'm certainly not arguing she will be the Republican candidate, but I am beginning to find it curious that the Washington consensus all but rules her out.

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NEW YORK:

You know an issue is really sensitive when there is an argument about the most basics terms used.

To its opponents, it is the planned "Mosque at Ground Zero".

Others say it is not a mosque, it is an Islamic cultural centre, and it is not located where the planes crashed into the Twin Towers.

51 Park Place isn't at Ground Zero, if by that you mean the exact spot, but it is two blocks or streets away, a short three or four minute stroll from the epicentre of the attack, now a busy building site for a memorial and office blocks.

Ground Zero is easily visible from the end of Park Place.

The plans are for an Islamic Cultural Centre including a kindergarten, a crèche, a theatre and a gym.

The imam in charge says that the 800 square foot "prayer space" would not qualify, under Koranic rules, as a mosque.

I am not qualified to judge, but if the phrase mosque conjures up images of domes and minarets and makes you think of the Regent's Park Mosque or Washington DC's Islamic Center then the word has misled you.

The New York centre will be in what used to be the Burlington Coat Factory, at the moment fronted with crumbling false columns in a terrace row, with a bar called the Dakota Grill on one side and a big organic super market-cum-café on the other.

It is not a particularly salubrious area - there is a strip club in the next street.

But to those who object that is not the point.

Jim Riches, lost his son Jimmy, a firefighter, in the attack on 11 September 2001.

He says it is something that you never, ever get over, that never, ever fades. Every family holiday, every birthday, every Christmas Jim is missing.

A retired firefighter himself, his lungs damaged by the detritus released in the aftermath of the buildings' collapse, he led the search for bodies and talks with grim bluntness of the horrible discoveries he made.

I mentioned to him that the area where the centre is to be built did not feel like hallowed ground.

He replied: "It is hallowed ground to us. There are porn shops and other things down there, but they didn't murder my son. Muslims murdered my son. And that is why I don't want the mosque there.

"They were cheering in the streets of Cairo, Baghdad, all through the Middle East, they were cheering the murder of my son that day.

"All we are asking is, practice your religion, but just move it a little bit further away."

He says he is not a bigot and this is not about religious freedom.

"All Muslims are not to blame, just like all Japanese are not to blame for Pearl Harbour, but you wouldn't put a Japanese centre at Pearl Harbour.

"I would say they promised to come back after '93 and they did, they promised to come back after 2001, I bet you it will be through that mosque if they do."

So he thinks the mosque is not just offensive but a threat? Definitely.

"Do I think the mosque is a threat? That's where all the other plots were hatched - in a mosque. You'd have to be a moron not to think that.

"I am not saying all mosques are bad and all Muslims are mad, anything is possible, I am just saying they should move it a little further away."

US politicians like Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich have made their support for relatives like Mr Riches very clear.

Some worry that those in a position of responsibility draw no clear delineation between the few Muslims who support such attacks and the vast majority who do not.

Some online sites pretty much reject the idea there is any difference.

The atmosphere in America may be changing towards Muslims, seeming worse than even in the aftermath of 9/11.

A taxi driver was attacked in New York, explicitly because he was a Muslim. There was an arson attack on a building work to extend a mosque in Tennessee - to which one online site said "How many times do the people of Murfreesboro, TN have to tell them? Build your mosque somewhere else".

In alarmed response various Muslim groups have been making their own adverts insisting being American and being Muslim are compatible.

Talat Hamdani fears what the politicians are doing and is angry with them because her son also died in the Twin Towers. He was, and she is, a Muslim.

"They have done a grave injustice to the nation, a grave injustice, because they have sown the seed of suspicion and ignited the flames of racism, and you see the nation is getting engulfed in it.

"The cab driver? It was lynching. I've got hate mail.

"This is getting very serious and if appropriate steps are not taken it is going to be disastrous for the nation."

I ask if she understands that some people feel it is insensitive to build the centre there as the attack was carried out by Muslims.

"It was carried out by terrorists who did it in the name of Islam. But no faith preaches to kill and there are major events in history where other faith based groups have carried out attacks.

"To hold the American Muslim groups responsible, and Muslims all over the world - but I am more concerned about my identity as an American Muslim - to scapegoat us, is not fair.

"My son died, other Muslims died, we mourn also, to hold us responsible because our faith is the same, that's wrong."

She believes that to stop the building would be to give in to oppression and it is now a matter of civil rights.

With the anniversary of 9/11 next week the debate is likely to grow more heated.

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President Barack Obama announced the end of the end of the Iraq war without much fanfare or fuss. Rhetorical flourishes might have been out of place in any case, but this was unadorned with soaring words though not lacking in strategy.

It was the second time he has made such an address to the American people from the Oval Office. Behind the obvious headlines what messages did he pack into his 18 minutes of prime time?

He lavished praise on the troops. He was in "awe" of the sacrifice of these "brave Americans", their families bore a "heroic burden", and they are "the steel in our ship of state." He promised the veterans would not be forgotten. This is the sort of stuff that makes America feel good about itself. It is vital for Mr Obama to counter the charges of the right that he doesn't value the military and he won't do himself any harm by laying it on with a trowel.

Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq were wars without end. Not only was combat in Iraq over, all US troops would leave at the end of next year. In Afghanistan the "transition" would begin next July. The pace would be determined by conditions on the ground but it would happen because "open-ended war serves neither our interests nor the Afghan people".

In part this is a message to his own supporters that he is not going to be cowed by the generals and at some point he will be in a position to say the Afghan war is over too. But it is also a message to American people as a whole, who are tired of war.

He said that he had telephoned President Bush before the speech. He had no words of praise for the surge. It was no secret that they disagreed about the war, "yet no one could doubt President Bush's support for our troops, or his love of country and commitment to our security."

Slightly cheeky this. It prompts questions about whose policies really threatened and damaged America. But he is making the point that it can be patriotic to oppose wars as well as to support them. It is a message to right wing republicans that liberals should not have to put up with accusations of being un-American for thinking differently about the world.

The US intends to sustain and strengthen its leadership of the world. But this could not only be through military action alone. It was through economic strength, example and hopes. That was as close as Mr Obama came to articulating some sort of foreign policy doctrine, but for most of the world it is more like platitude than philosophy.

The wars have strained America. Strength and influence abroad are based in prosperity at home and the US had spent more than $1 trillion on war, which has "short changed" investment in America. Two-fifths of his speech was spent promising to revitalise the America economy, and this he would make his central responsibility and mission.

The White House is constantly trying to turn the media's attention to the economy. It is where most Americans want him to focus. This is his most important message. If he can not turn it in to reality then things will get very sticky on the home front.

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