´óÏó´«Ã½

There were solid economic measures in this speech. And how they work out will determine the president's popularity more than his words. But the words were striking.

He tried to recapture his mantle as a man who would bring change to Washington, lecturing, scolding the politicians before him and talking of the numbing weight of politics, the frustration of Washington where every day was election day and of people's deep and corrosive doubts about the process of politics.

He suggested that setbacks he'd suffered, like healthcare, were because he put the public good before popularity.

Cross-party co-operation - bipartisanhip - is highly prized by Americans and he called on Republicans not just to say "no" but to show leadership and serve the citizens, not their ambitions.

Of course he is trying to box them in, daring them to vote against potentially popular measures such as curbing lobbyists, promoting new jobs and toughening banking rules.

Talk about the tactics and the power play is very much inside the Beltway and his tone may have some impact on how he is seen. But it'll be his plans for the economy that will really drive the voters' perception of him.

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All times are EST, GMT-5. This live blog has now finished.

22:48
The governor talked about America as a land that blazes a trail of opportunity and where good government gives that opportunity. Again, he stressed low taxation and personal choice over top-down, one-size-fits-all big government. It was a competent speech but it is an odd system that makes for such an unequal contest. The president's real and serious opponents have doubtless been on cable TV while I've been listening to Mr McDonnell.

22:41
He's talked about the Detroit Christmas plot and people's worries that legal rights which are intended for Americans are being given to terrorists. He says taxpayers' dollars should be used to defeat terrorists.

22:34
Last time I saw Bob McDonnell, he was giving a speech in a small airport in Virginia the day before his election victory taking the governor's mansion off the Democrats and winning it for the Republicans. Now he's responding to the president on behalf of his party from Richmond, Virginia. He is responding to the speech that was spun in advance, rather than the one the president actually made. That doesn't mean he is getting it wrong by concentrating on jobs, he's saying that creating new ones is at the top of his agenda as well, but piling on more taxation can only hurt the middle classes.

22:23
It never does any harm to praise the audience you're talking to, esp in the USA. He quotes the woman who says "we're strong, we're resilient, we're American". And tells of the chants of "USA! USA!" when another life was saved in Haiti. He concludes:
"We don't quit, I don't quit, let's seize this moment." It's a strong, well-crafted speech, where he has turned political mistakes to his advantage, suggesting failure to pass healthcare is a badge of courage and that he puts doing the right thing above short-term popularity.

22:18
Back to the bigger theme: he's saying many Americans have lost faith in the big institutions of corporations, media and government. Taking a pop at TV pundits, who reduce serious debates into silly arguments. And another nod towards his own possible shortcomings. He says there are many Americans who aren't sure if there can be change or at least, that he can deliver it. But he's saying he won't play it safe, just to get through the next election. Again, he's portraying himself as the one who's willing to do the right thing, even if it's politically unpopular.

22:13
Finally a little something for the disillusioned liberals of the president's party. "I promise that this year, I'll work to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans to serve the country they love because of who they are." A big cheer from some. But the men in uniform in the front row aren't getting to their feet, and look rather glum. What do they really think? Don't ask, don't tell.

22:06
After all this, the section on foreign affairs feels squeezed, it took 6 months to decide on policy in Afghanistan, it took just 40 seconds to deliver the message that he's confident that they will succeed.

22:03
The professor of bipartisanship starts to lecture. I'm speaking to both parties now, he says sternly: "What frustrates the American people is a Washington where every day is election day." He acknowledges ruefully: "Campaign fever has come even earlier than usual this year." He tells his party to govern, not to run for the hills. He tells the Republicans that if they continually use the requirement for 60 votes to block any business that this isn't leadership. And he's telling both parties that he wants monthly meetings with both the leaderships, that's the equivalent of "in my study, now!".

21:59
The Republicans have been muttering and sitting without applauding while he suggested their tax cuts were part of the problem, but he's moving on to a wider attack: "We face more than a deficit of dollars right now, we face a deficit of trust, deep and corrosive doubts." He is talking about tougher rules on lobbyists, and reversing the Supreme Court decision to allow corporations to spend without limit on election advertising. Again, only half the chamber get to their feet and applaud. He is boxing the Republicans in, taunting them to vote against a bill that's likely to be popular with the public. About three quarters of the chamber on their feet now.

21:53
He is talking about the deficit. A $3tn hole in the budget: "That was before I walked in the door". Some applause and a couple of whistles, I don't know if of approval or disapproval. He is talking about a three-year freeze that has already been announced, telling his party that even though many are hurting, spending has to be reined in and telling the right that tax cuts for the wealthy won't do the trick either.

21:49
For the first time, there is some acceptance that he got it wrong. He says that the longer healthcare was debated, the more the lobbying and horse trading, the more sceptical people became. He says: "I take my share of the blame." But he is asking Congress "do not walk away from reform, let's finish the job for the American people". No one should be surprised that he doesn't say how. He does ask if anybody has a better idea, to let him know: "let me see it!". Again, they're on their feet, applauding.

21:47
He is praising the first lady for tackling childhood obesity. As she smiles, he says "she gets embarrassed".

21:45
Again, the president is casting himself as the anti-politician, someone who will do the right thing, even if it's foolhardy. He said "I didn't take on healthcare because it was good politics." Scattered laughter. He pauses. He is relaxing into this.

21:38
More difficult stuff: he's talking about clean energy including new nuclear power plants, which got a big cheer, and I suspect not only from his own side. And while he didn't say "drill baby drill" - Sarah Palin's supporters' phrase - he did talk about opening new offshore oil areas. What does he want in return? A bipartisan effort in the Senate for a new energy and climate bill.

21:34
It always helps when politicians have a dragon to slay. The president is talking about financial reform but the passage is important because he is identifying an enemy: the lobbyists who are trying to kill it.

21:31
There is nothing so far even vaguely apologetic about this speech. No sense that he's got anything wrong. He's stressed how the mistakes that have led to this economic crisis have been building up for 10 years. It'll be interesting to see what people make of that tone. He is portraying his critics as people who are telling him he is too ambitious, that America should put its future on hold. He says: "Washington has been telling us to wait for decades." But he does not acccept second place for the USA. That got them to their feet cheering.

21:25
First concrete proposals: $30bn to give small businesses credit. A tax credit for 1m small businesses who hire workers or raise wages, eliminating capital gains tax on small business investment. He needs small businesses on his side and this is directly appealing to them.

21:21
Obama the tax cutter: listing tax cuts he's made and adding after a round of hand clapping: "I thought I'd get some applause for that one!". He is directly speaking to those small business people and blue collar workers who feel let down and telling stories about how the Recovery Act has helped people across America.

21:19
The first laughter of the night, it was on the bank bailout. "I hated it. You hated it. It was about as popular as root canal."

21:17
"I have never been more hopeful about America's future than I have been tonight." It sounded better than it read in cold print, and it got applause. But still, it's audacious and could backfire in the wider audience which doesn't feel as hopeful.

21:16
He says again that America is being tested and he's talking about what I suspect will be the theme of the speech: the frustration and anger of Americans at what seems like bad behaviour on Wall St is being rewarded and why Washington seems to be mired in shoutinesss and pettiness. The president is casting himself as being against the politicians, against politics as normal.

21:12
The president moved into the chamber shaking hands, occasionally kissing and slapping backs. Not surprisingly, he looks rather tense, impatient to get on with it. He's begun by reminding Congress that the State of the Union has taken place in good times and bad. He says you can look bad and assume progress was inevitable but the future was anything but certain.

20:42
The speaker has called the House to order: the Vice-President has been introduced to applause.
Congress is packed and looks somewhat uncomfortable. It may grow less comfortable still: I think they're going to get a bit of a lecture. From the extracts we've seen already, it seems the president is going to be pretty combative: challenging Congress to back him on jobs, banks and tough new rules on lobbyists. Calling on them to overcome "the numbing weight of our politics". Still you never quite get the feel of the whole thing from extracts and the advance spin. The president has left the White House and is on his way to Capitol Hill.

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President Obama was elected on such a wave of optimism and expectation that he can hardly have dreamt that his first State of the Union address would have to amount to a fightback speech.

It's his chance to "speak to America", as the phrase goes. But there are so many Americas, so many competing hopes and fears, that he has an awkward trick to pull off. All presidents, indeed all leaders in democracies have to speak to competing audiences. But it is particularly true for Obama, just over a year into his presidency.

He would want to boast of more success than he's had. The plan was to pass his flagship programme of healthcare reform by Christmas at the latest.

He promised to close Guantanamo bay prison, his own dead line has come and gone,

His party has lost all the serious electoral races this year, two in supposedly safe seats.

But nothing matters more than the way Americans feel about their own prosperity and his handling of the economy.

The administrating says it has saved or created up to 2m jobs. But unemployment is around 10% rather than the promised 8%. The fall in his popularity has been swift: .

Barack Obama won't mind if his ratings also match Ronnie's in the third and fourth years. The economy is all, but he can't afford to lose the trust of the nation in the meantime.

So these are the main balancing acts for the man on the tightrope.

Hope v Humility
The president probably has to sound regretful that things aren't better and perhaps admit to a few mistakes. But not to too many. He has to show a degree of humility and understanding of the anger that exists, without seriously accepting the blame. That would undermine the sense that he is still the embodiment and executor of the people's hopes.

Swingers v the base
The president has both disappointed some core supporters and some swing voters, the first for abandoning liberal principles, the second for cleaving to them.

Activists feel he's let them down on Afghanistan, health care and gays in the military. When activists stop being active and become mere supporters, it drains the life out of campaigns. You can bet if activists become mere voters, more luke warm supporters stay at home.

But those in the middle, swing voters, matter even more, and some voted for President Obama because he promised to bring a new, less partisan spirit to Washington. He has to square the circle.

Care v scare
The president has stressed how important it is for the economy and for the security of many Americans to reform the healthcare system. He can hardly back away from this central promise, a dream of liberals in the USA for a century.

Yet there is no doubt it has become politically toxic. Some fear big government. My hunch is many, many more are just confused about what the competing plans mean for their bank balance. Another circle to square.

Rhetoric v reality
People want a stronger economy, and more jobs. The president can promise to do more, try harder. But there's a danger in making more promises that look like pie in some distant future sky. If the promises are grounded in real measures, they will cost money. That will further worry those who feel cash has been thrown at the problem to no avail, increasing a huge deficit.

If the president's speech sounds like a laundry list, it will have failed, and he is not one to make that sort of mistake.

The tone, possibly a single sound bite, will be more important. . But in the end, the measures he announces to deal with the state of the economy will determine his fate more than rhetoric.

When the speech begins, I will be live blogging.

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In Baltimore Police headquarters I ask them what they think of the TV show The Wire. Opinions are mixed. Miami got a better deal with Miami Vice. It's a portrait of the 90s, not now. It has given the place a reputation for crime when it is no worse than most big American cities.

I've no wire tap, but I am recording and trying a bit of detective work. Everybody seems agreed that the president's State of the Union speech tonight will be about jobs. But there is a common complaint in the US that despite the billions spend on creating new jobs unemployment has hardly been dented.

It can be difficult to track down where the money has gone. More than $100m worth of grants has gone to Johns Hopkins University Hospital, the city's biggest employer. In Baltimore as elsewhere a lot is spend on updating houses so they use less heating: "weatherisation" is the ugly word for it.

But $3.5m is being spend on a project to give the police 2,000 smart phones, the "Pocket Cop". Officer Chris Peters shows me his device. It's pretty much a large Blackberry, with special security and a direct link to the police computer. He's a big fan , showing me how "if I go to my home page, it'll allow me to run names, tags, property. Boats, guns - all that good stuff. Warrant checks. Anything reported stolen."

He shows me how he can type in the number of his driving licence and pretty soon his picture appears on the screen.

"I wish I had this when I had this when I came off the street in 2000. I did a drugs lock up and he gave me his brother's identification. So his brother ends up in court. But with this I would have had the right information on the night."

Gayle Guilford, the director of Management Information Systems for the Baltimore Police Department, is an enthusiast too.

"Part of the Police commissioner's vision is to get the officers out of the cars, into the community. Today, an officer would run your tag on a lap top sitting in the vehicle, now we are getting them out on the street, but with more safety, knowing who they're dealing with. All of our patrol officers are going to have the same technology in their hands as the crooks have."

It doesn't stop there. She says that the device has GPS which means not only that they know in headquarters where an officer is at any given moment, they can review the data after an operation or incident to see whether officers were in the right place.

Pocket Cop is not a gimmick. Most of us who use a smart phone quickly find them indispensable. But I do wonder what on earth this had to do with a stimulus package that is about creating jobs. Gayle Guilford says: "Hopefully if the city is safer and the police can do a better job and people feel safer and more visit the city."

That seems pretty tenuous but Scott Peterson from the mayor's office chips in: "If this works here in Baltimore this is a technology that is made in America that can go around the country and even around the world. As the president has always said the idea is innovation, it is about where are we going to go next with new industries. I think Pocket Cop is one of those advances that could create a new home-grown industry." He ruefully reflects that if it makes the city of The Wire safer, the companies involved have a ready made global advertising strategy.
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It seems to me there is a real dilemma. Some people I meet in my rest of my time in Baltimore were asking where were the jobs now, while others thought it would take time to see the results of spending. There clearly is some frustrating that all that money hasn't produced a whole heap of new jobs.

But is Pocket Cop, and other projects like it, examples of stimulus money spent on a pet schemes only vaguely connected to jobs, or a really worthwhile investment in the future?

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Could the Democrats lose control of the House later this year, not to the Republicans, but to the ?

Some of the organisers of the conservative movement that took cable TV by storm last summer are in Washington to discuss where they go from here. Some say it was their below the radar organisation that took Massachusetts for the Republicans last week. They are on a roll.

About 60 of their organisers have been brought together by in an office block a stone's throw from the White House to work out strategy.

How can a leaderless, grass roots movement hope to curb the man in the White House and the men and women on Capitol Hill? How can a radical movement keep pure when the party machines want to harness its power for their own benefit? These are a couple of the topics up for discussion.

But the key must be whether they can take the House and the Senate in November's mid-term elections. Not for Republicans, but for conservatives.

For once perhaps that cliche "only in America" is true. The some time ago looked like a mass movement. But it fizzled to nothing. Only in America is there the peculiar system of primaries: the ultra-democratic system of internal party elections to decide on candidates, open to anyone who wants to register themselves as a supporter of that party.

The Tea Party people say they are now a multi-million-dollar organisation that will have an impact on perhaps hundreds of such races all over the US. One of the most important will be in Florida, for senate seat where the Governor was the front runner in opinion polls, but has been over taken by (my man to watch in ). The Tea Party Patriots' Florida organiser Robin Stublen told me: "We believe Charlie Crist has not shown conservative values as governor. The man has recently said he's cut taxes yet every single fee has doubled or tripled across the state, everything from drivers' licences to voters' registration to property taxes have gone up. We believe we need to vote a person in with conservative values and that's what we base all of our judgements on."

The movement's name celebrates the . There is a very deliberate constant reference to the values of the war of independence, the founding fathers and the Constitution. While the British Crown isn't now the enemy, taxation and representation do loom large. When I ask what they want freedom from, what they dislike about Big Government, the repeated answers are about taxation. Their conservatism has a capital E. E For Economic. If people want to talk about guns or gays or abortion they tell them there are plenty of other groups out there.

The Tea Party Patriots' national organiser Mark Meckler says it is about reining in all politicians, stopping them spending. He asks me if I have children and when I nod says: "I liken it to teenagers. If you left home to do some reporting and you left your credit card on the table and you left the keys to the liquor cabinet, you would come home and there would have been a party and the house will be trashed and there will be charges on your card. You can get as mad as you want with your children but that's your responsibility. The folk on the Hill there are like those teenagers, and we've left them the keys to the cabinet and the credit card and it is up to us to be responsible parents and hold them accountable."

But representation is as important as taxation. There is a constant refrain that the national politicians are ignoring the will of the people. It is clear their constant stress on the importance of Twitter and Facebook is not an attempt to be trendy, but that social networking has made them feel part of a huge movement.

Bill, an organiser from Maryland, told me: "For most of our lifetime we all feel like the child who always has his hand up in class. He has the answer and never gets called on. And eventually he just clams up and doesn't get involved anymore... But finally we've now found a way to keep in touch on the phone or via Facebook or e-mail and now can be heard. And now we have microphones and we can be heard 1,000 miles away."

There is no display of the visceral hatred that dripped from the cable networks last summer, and little of the sense that Obama's government is some how illegitimate, rather than just plain wrong. There is a feeling that the president promised to govern from the centre and he hasn't. But I have to ask, is this movement really of the people, or of largely white, largely well-off people?

Mark Mekler says: "Go to our protest and you can see people of all colours, all social strata, of all parties. This is a broadly-based people's movement representing what I call the great middle of America. The left will say those things to denigrate us and we've heard it for years. The bigger we get, the more powerful we get, the more you will hear those cries. They are cries of desperation by people who have pushed a political agenda on us for years and now find themselves falling from favour."

The Tea Party Patriots' main enemies may be the Democratic Party and the president, but Republicans will be pondering what the movement means for them in the mid-terms. It is a powerful machine for getting people to vote. But the people I spoke to had no intention of being a tool of the party hierarchy. Like many revolutionaries they prize purity over victory. But they think they can have both.

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Radio 4 has broadcast my thoughts on what this week says about America's twin obsession with populism and bipartisanship.

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What a week. This anniversary of the president's year in office was always going to be a time for reflection.

The victory of Scott Brown in Republican-resistant Massachusetts turned it into a time for urgent reassessment for the president's party. The word "pivotal" has been used a fair bit. That's right. After twelve months the President has swung on his heel.

This may be, as many commentators contend, the beginning of the end for a one-term, flash-in-the-pan President. This is the third victory in a row for Republicans and they are on a roll. It certainly hints to sweeping Republican victories in November's mid-term elections.

But it may be just the kick the president and his party needed. After that stunning victory and the adulation that followed, he assumed his popularity gave him political invincibility. Although he has been accused of governing from further left than some expected, at heart he's a pragmatist.

He got his head down and got on with the new, serious, difficult and no doubt fascinating business of running the most powerful country in the world.

This week may have reminded him that these days, and especially in America, the political campaign can never stop. The most important thing about power is what you do with it. But a very close second is making sure you keep it.

There have been immediate changes. Whether they like it or not, the Democrats' number one priority, health care, has just slipped dramatically down the agenda.

Scott Brown's election left them with few options. The two main ones have now been ruled out. The president has said the plan must not be pushed through the Senate before Mr Brown takes his seat. Nancy Pelosi has said the Senate bill won't get enough votes in the House.

This surely means that healthcare reform, as currently proposed, is finished.

They deny it is dead, but it is certainly in a coma, only to be wakened if some Republican senators have an unlikely epiphany.

This will be very disappointing for some who voted for Obama. But many on the left thought the plan was too watered down to be worth much.

The opinion polls suggest a more complex picture than simply people hating the idea of any reform, but the current plan had become politically toxic.

The two bills are just too confusing, and the Democrats haven't tried to sell them clearly. , an economist trying to convince a union member that taxing her Cadillac plan wouldn't hurt her.
His argument rested on the belief that her company would raise wages if it was forced to adopt a less expensive plan. Not surprisingly, she wasn't convinced.

Then there is the president's radical plan for the banks. This looks like a dramatic policy shift. The White House says it was signed off before Christmas, so I'll just observe that by an amazing coincidence it is a perfect fit for this week's narrative.

The president has christened the new plan, so offensive to many big banks, after . This is kind of the president because by all accounts Paul Volcker had all but given up on his plan ever being adopted. . Now it seems he's been overruled.

The president knows getting this through congress will be hard. But this isn't a messy vote loser in the country. This is a populist clarion call.

He's predicting a swarm of lobbyists will descend on Capitol Hill and he's doing a good impression of a man relishing the scrap ahead.

He'll hope the American people will be cheering him on. He has called on Republicans to join in designing common sense rules to protect ordinary Americans.

They may well deride his plan as another example of government interference, but they are in a sticky position and they know it.

One senator has dismissively said he is creating a "bogeyman". But I bet it is a bogeyman that frightens many of his voters.

The Supreme Court ruling raises another spectre. Banks that feel threatened can spend their money running ads against the new laws.

There may be a torrent of them. But they will have to put their names on them, rather than saying "This advert was paid for by Americans for a nicer America" as happens at the moment. They will have to be very clever adverts to avoid public distain.

The White House no longer seems complacent in the face of bad opinion polls, disastrous elections and a re-invigorated Republican party. Late in the day, they are accepting the battle is serious and returning to the fray.

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From the British point of view, one of the notable features of American political campaigns is the volume and viciousness of the political adverts, and the amount of money spent on them. Both attacking an opponent in the way that is commonplace here, and spending the amount of money on it, would be illegal in Britain.

So it is perhaps a bit of a surprise that that the current laws in America are too tight, and that corporations should be allowed to spend just like individuals. It's bound to apply to unions, too. Liberals are alarmed that it will mean big business dictating the outcome of a campaign.

At the moment, the plentiful adverts are paid for by specially set up groups. The ruling was about paid for by . It's not a big business of course, but a pressure group. But legally speaking it is a not-for-profit corporation which is why it fell foul of the current rules.

The judges said stopping that ad airing was a restriction on freedom of speech, "censorship vast in its reach...subverting vibrant public discourse".

One Democratic senator has said the ruling undermines democracy and guts free elections. seem equally alarmed.

Will it make a whole heap of difference? Spending is bound to increase, but don't unions and corporations find a way around the rules anyway? One analyst has told a colleague that businesses won't be delighted: they don't want to spend huge amounts on political campaigns in the current economic environment.

And can American politics get any nastier?

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After last night's beating at the hands of the people of Massachusetts, President Obama is keeping his head down.

Any public event reflecting on his first year in office would have been both unseemly and uncomfortable. So there wasn't one.

But he did give an interview to in which he rejected a dirty quick-fix on healthcare. He said: "I just want to make sure this is off the table. The Senate certainly shouldn't try to jam anything through until Scott Brown is seated. The people of Massachusetts spoke, he has got to be part of that process."

That last part suggests he is also ruling out simply passing the Senate bill through the House. The speeches have been made, the commentators will continue to sound off, but I suspect the political strategists will take a little time reading the entrails.

It's obviously easy for those with a political agenda to impose their own agenda - to find out what is behind the discontent is less easy. The trouble is that there was little in the way of exit polls (apart from this I've just found), so it is difficult to answer the core question: why did people who voted for Obama in the presidential election vote for Scott Brown in the Senate race?

Vox pops are no substitute for such research, but I was intrigued by one man who told a ´óÏó´«Ã½ colleague: "It was sending the message 'enough is enough'. I mean trying to push this healthcare thing through: do you know what it means? Well do you?"

Mr Obama's woes must in part stem from the fact no-one can answer that question. There are still two different bills, and what impact they would have on individual family finances is a matter of interpretation. Confusion is never a good policy.

The man who's rocked Mr Obama's boat, Scott Brown, is endearingly thrilled about his victory, and sounds as if he can hardly believe it.

His tone is fascinating. He is calling himself an independent, hardly mentioning the word "Republican" but talking about "the people" a lot. Invited to take a free hit at the president, he joked about their mutual interest in basketball and Mr Obama's good sense of humour.

He's strongly opposed to the healthcare bill, but - asked to analyse his victory - he stressed voters' disgust at the pork-barrel politics that allowed the Democrats to get the healthcare bill though the Senate before Christmas.

When the blogs and columns and airwaves are full of bile it is at least interesting that the man who won doesn't want to make it personal.

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The Doug Flutie Band entertained a couple of thousand celebrating Republicans with the old Free song It's Alright Now. Even if Republicans don't quite believe it is alright now, it has certainly just got a whole lot better for them.

The former presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney told the crowd: "This really does change everything." It was a shot that would be heard around the world, a message to liberal, arrogant Washington, he said.

The victor, Scott Brown, told his supporters people didn't want a trillion dollar healthcare reform which would raise taxes, destroy jobs and get the country deeper into debt. He said: "We need to start afresh" on healthcare, "we can do better!". "Yes, we can!" chanted back the crowd. He told them that what had happened there, could happen all over America.

Over at the other camp, the defeated Martha Coakley rejected the blame that will inevitably come her way, telling campaign workers to give themselves a round of applause. But she said it was clear that people were unhappy about the economy and worried about healthcare.

Even before the result was officially announced, aides said President Obama was surprised and angry. To lose a state that was won by John F. Kennedy in 1953 and held by his brother Teddy Kennedy for 47 years until his death last year is a calamity in its own right for the Democratic Party.

It stings all the more that it comes on the very day that the president has been in power a year and it has real, immediate political impact.

The Democrats are now one vote short of the 60 out of the 100 seats they need to control the Senate and prevent the Republicans from filibustering.

This puts healthcare reform in danger. It's not dead but the options for getting it through are either unpalatable or unlikely to succeed. It makes other tricky legislation, like passing climate change laws more difficult.

This a morale boost to Republicans who already felt on a roll. We will now see a battle for interpretations.

Republicans will portray this as the rejection of healthcare reform and big government by a people who voted for Obama but got more than they bargained for. The word "arrogant" will be used a lot.

Democrats, I suspect, will see it as an understandable anger about the economy and jobs, and argue they are getting the blame for something that began on the last president's watch.

Of course people don't vote, or change their votes, for one single reason and both may be true. It will be a part of my job in the coming months to try and discern what the mood really is.

Either way it is an uncomfortable anniversary for the president.

Obama won by promising change from the old way of doing things, being against the establishment, against Washington. Now he is in power the Republicans seek to portray themselves as the representatives of the people, not only against those in power, but against the way they wield power.

Washington is, and has been for a long time, filled with people who say they despise the political establishment. Not for the first time the race to be the biggest populist on the block is on.

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What happens to healthcare if the Republicans take the Massachusetts senate seat?

It would be a blow to lose the seat that was Teddy Kennedy's for years, in Democratic hands ever since JFK took it in 1953. It would be worse coming just as Obama celebrates a year in office.

But this is not just a symbol. It would have huge political impact.

It would deprive Obama of the 60 votes he needs to stop a filibuster in the Senate, creating serious implications not only for healthcare but also environmental legislation and any other new laws the president might want.

If the Republicans win, none of the options for healthcare reform are palatable for the president and all carry considerable dangers.

These are how I see them:

• Speed up the merger of the House and Senate bills and push it through the Senate before Scott Brown takes his seat.

Downside: it looks grubby and plays into the hands of Republicans arguing Obama is forcing health care down people's throats.

• Get the existing Senate bill through the house.

Downside: this depends on the House voting for it. Democrats who are liberals or anti-abortionists don't like the bill as it stands. Those in vulnerable seats may be put off backing healthcare reform at all by the Massachusetts result.

• Change the votes of a couple of Republicans in the Senate.

Downside: not a single Republican voted for the bill at Christmas and it is hard to see what would change their minds now.

• Admit defeat: the Democrats could argue they did all they could to carry out Obama's mandate, got further than ever before, but were stopped by Republicans.

Downside: it is accepting defeat on a major part of the president agenda. It just looks dreadful.

• Make the mid-terms a referendum on healthcare: simply a politically bold way of the above. Argue that the people have an opportunity to get rid of the Republican road block in November.

Downside: it would certainly give the mid-terms a real focus. But it is too bold, too dangerous. The danger for Democrats is that the people would vote against them and against reform, turning a defeat into a self-created disaster.

There will also be talk among left wing Democrats of the Senate being a drag on change - as indeed it is meant to be constitutionally - and changing the rules on filibuster. But is a long term solution.

I can't see any other options.

But political brilliance consists of cutting your own swathe.

A commando recently told someone I know how to enter a potentially booby trapped house: "Don't use the door. Blow yourself a new door."

Good advice for the president, perhaps.

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I can't help thinking of Wordsworth's verse as I sit in a Chicago kitchen, listening to three students talk about the night Obama won, the night when they all went to Grant Park.

Chicago came to a standstill as people crammed into the park to listen as the results came in, state by state. Throughout the night, one of the students, Claire Hungerford, took a series of powerful photographs recording history unfolding. She says: "I was kind of wide-eyed, trying to soak in as much as I possibly could. It was a gift to be able to be there to experience it."

Her friend, Justin Staple, says: "We were sitting in my apartment four blocks away, so we hopped on the metro and were standing among a million people, right in the loop, getting very excited, very loud, very crowded - all excited for the same reason."

Bonnie Kate Walker, who you can see exultant in Claire's pictures, adds: "It was incredible. It was this huge mass of people and you felt outside of yourself. I don't think I have ever quite felt excitement like that."

That was election night in November. The inauguration was in January and tomorrow Obama will have been in office for one year.

You can make a checklist of the president's failures and achievements a year on - the stimulus package and other economic measures have doubtless had some effect but unemployment is still high.

Much of the world is pleased with his determination to engage and debate, but it didn't stop China's snub at the Copenhagen climate summit. Guantanamo Bay is not closed, the healthcare bill is not passed and new environmental legislation is nowhere in sight.
One firm achievement is increasing troop number in Afghanistan, but it is not one many core supporters would applaud.

But this sort of list is no substitute to listening to activists like these students.

Justin says: "I am a little disappointed. During the election there was the whole feeling that this was a time for change. We represented a generation that was a hopeful generation, with the hope that we would not be disillusioned again, that not every politician would turn out the same.

"We thought we could choose a figure who could stand for what he believes in, and not take pressures from Washington. That is something that has not happened. The reason I was so disappointed over the troop increase in Afghanistan is because it was such a poignant example of how the military can pressure the president."

Claire feels the same: "I feel disappointed in this new-found disconnect. I had really high expectations. My life hasn't changed. My family is dealing with the same problems. I feel a little bit let down but these expectations that we all had were a little negligent of the problems that were happening. I never really thought about the process of addressing the problems, I just wanted this immediate change, this top-to-bottom re-design."

It fascinates me that these dedicated campaigners feel let down, but also worried that they have been naive, and they have underestimated the powers ranged against their desires.

Bonnie Kate says: "Do I still have faith in Obama? The answer is 'Yes'. This country was like a freight train headed in the wrong direction and to stop that, and turn it around, takes a lot of power and a lot of time, and that is something I and a lot of activists didn't understand. We were so exited, and that was part of Grant Park, we were thinking - maybe this is the end, we no longer have to work so hard as activists.

"Healthcare is a perfect example of something that needed to happen, that people supported but you get this bill and whittled it down to nothing and people now don't care if it is passed or not."

This may not quite be a but there is danger here for Obama.

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Antonio's scissors click and clack across the top of my head. I've decided the Obama cut ($21) wouldn't do anything for me. I am content to have a regular trim in the Hyde Park Hair Salon in Chicago, a virtual shrine to its most famous customer. I'm sitting at the front, opposite the very barber's chair where Obama used to sit: it is now enclosed in a glass case. Above it hangs a large painting of the man himself in the chair.

"He's one of those guys who come in and hang out. When you come in a barber's shop, it's a manly camaraderie sort of thing, and he fits right in. None of that 'Be quiet, he's come in'," says Antonio. He jokes that like all presidents, Obama has gone grey in office.

And he admits that, a year since the president moved into the White House, the economy doesn't feel much better:

"I don't think so. I don't feel the effects, but a lot of my clients are losing their jobs, a lot have moved away, trying to find something else. But I don't put the blame on Obama, I put it on the previous administration. It takes a long while to clean out a closet, and that's what he's doing. By the time we start feeling the effects of President Obama and what he wanted to do, he'll be out of office. It takes a while."

Other customers seem to agree. Monday is Martin Luther King Day and I've been in Chicago, in part, to find out how black Americans feel the president has done, almost a year on. The pride in a role model who isn't a rapper or an athlete is as strong as ever. Those being shaved and shorn don't reflect the sort of discontent reflected in the opinion polls.

One customer continues with the image of politics as hygiene:

"A lot of work left to do. It's like cleaning up after someone threw a party in your house. It's pretty easy to mess up a house, it's a lot harder to get it back into order. It's obvious the president before him disrupted things and made a mess, and Obama has the job of mopping, washing, cleaning."

One man is not entirely happy:

"A little concern. The health care plan he's put forth - in a perfect society, it would work out. But there's a lot of that he's trying to do that's kind of aggressive, and I am not sure its going to pan out in his favour. But I hope it does."

Another urges patience:

"He's doing okay, real good. It takes a little time, but he's coming along. The economy is still struggling - but a couple of years, and it'll be back on track."

Few African-Americans have a really harsh word to say about Obama as a man; of course, some don't share his politics. I travel to the other side of town in the evening where a bar is hosting a get-together for Young Republicans.

The only black face I see here is that of Issac Hayes. Not the musician, although this Mr Hayes may also be famous one day. He is running for Congress, and his party has set him something of a mission impossible: taking from . He tells me:

"He brought inspiration, him and his family, to the White House. I am proud to have a black president - America is proud, but that's not the issue. He's brought change, but it's not the right kind of change. He's allowed the left to pull him off his campaign promise to work with both sides of the aisle. I don't think he believes in American exceptionalism: he's been on an apology tour round the world, and I don't agree with that."

Mr Hayes says that the poor in the area he wants to represent have not been helped by Democratic Party politics.

"They would be better with a conservative in the White House and a conservative in Congress. The district has a 98% poverty rate. Allowing people to have more money in their pockets is the first important thing and then when business has more money they can put people to work. George Bush, when he had a recession, he cut taxes and created five million jobs, that's what he wants to do."

As Obama approaches a year in office, the mass media is and will be full of check lists of promises kept and targets achieved, but what struck me in Chicago is that most people had rather less frenetic expectations.  

In a country that demands instant gratification in politics as in everything else, the African-Americans I spoke to repeated that change can't happen overnight.

Reverend Leon Finney has worked in the poorer parts of Chicago for a good while. He not only (TWO).

He goes way back with the man who is now president. He first knew Barack Obama when he became a community organiser, then worked with him as a lawyer and supported him as he moved first onto the local political stage and then went national.

Dr Finney tells me that speaking as one of Jesse Jackson's campaign managers in 1988, he thinks it is a minor miracle that Obama made it to the White House at all.

He admits that in this area there's been little tangible change.

"We have a nation that wanted to see change overnight as if you could flick the telly with the remote control and all of a sudden there is change. It's not going to happen. It didn't happen."

But, he says, because of their history, black Americans are patient.

"We are very proud. We are elated. Maybe, somewhat underemployed and unemployed still, but we have a lot of hope. You have to remember more than any other ethnic group the African-American population has learned to live with hardship and survive the harshest of situations. 'Last hired, first fired' is nothing new for the African-American community. My sense is that we are used to the rigours and better able to adapt and less frightened (by the recession) than our brothers and sisters of different colours."

The day before his murder, Martin Luther King said he had been allowed to go to the top of the mountain and glimpsed the promised land. Much of what I heard in Chicago echoes that leader's belief in slow but inexorable progress.

PS: An earlier version of this post appeared with the last half missing - apologies for the error.

Tomorrow: discontent with the president.

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Could fears over healthcare reform lose the Democrats what should be a very safe seat? And could that cost Obama the bill? There's no doubt healthcare has become the main issue in the election of the Massachusetts senate seat, left vacant by the death of Teddy Kennedy.

It would be a grievous blow for Obama if this seat went Republican for the first time since JFK took it for the Democrats in 1953: especially as the result will come on the eve of the anniversary of his inauguration next week.

You'll notice there are a lot of "ifs" in this piece. I don't actually think they will lose the seat, but there is an awful lot at stake. On the face of it, the well-known Democratic candidate Martha Coakley, the state's attorney general, should walk it. Most opinion polls give her a clear lead, but one has her opponent Scott Brown ahead by a neck. that with a poor turn-out and a good showing for the independent, the Republican candidate could just do it.

It is what he would do next that makes this election so fraught, and so important. Just before Christmas, the Democrats scrapped 60 votes to pass the bill. There is now intense wrangling in an attempt to merge this bill with one from the house. But it will, in the end, go back to the senate for another vote.

And Obama needs every last vote. So Brown says he would be the "41st" senator: the one to deprive the Democrats of the two-thirds majority they need to block a filibuster and get through a final version. The administration is rumoured to be preparing some jiggery pokery about the timing of his swearing in and of any vote if things go wrong for them at the polls.

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Is the president angry? You bet. Is he planning to punish the big bad banks? Well, maybe. The mid-terms will be an attempt to weave a story over who stands for Main Street, against Wall Street.

Like many a cliche, "It's the economy, stupid!" feels as dead as a door nail, flat as a pancake, through constant repetition. But the tired phrase from Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign is trotted out so often because it is so true.

But it is much easier for a challenger to make a meal out of the state of the economy than the man in charge. So team Obama have to work out how to turn what they are doing into news and turn the economic pain of many Americans into votes for his party in the mid-terms.

In a thoughtful and calm world, people might make judgements on whether policies work or not, and look at the alternatives. But strategists in the real work know voters like politicians who slay dragons, or at least give them a poke with a sharp spear.

Those sitting on a hoard of gold, shouldn't be surprised to be cast in the role of greedy monsters. : was the president "visibly angry" about the $10m plus bonuses that some bankers apparently plan to award themselves? "Absolutely", came the reply.

Such banks, he said, were "folks that contrive not to get it", they are not "listening to the American people". Still, unless Mr Obama starts throwing the furniture around, "visible anger" behind the White House curtains is not the stuff of headlines.

Attempts to take back some of that pile of treasure might do the trick.

"a fee on banks designed to recoup some of the cost taxpayers incurred in the bailout...the chief goal is a fee that is not easily passed along."

A tax on banks would be one way of grabbing the headlines and putting himself on the opposite side of the road to Wall Street. Then, suggest that none of the other available knights is quite as brave, indeed might rather be seen as a friend of the monster.

with Obama's advisor David Axelrod who says of Republicans:

"If they want to stand with the banks and the financial industries, and protect the status quo, then let them explain that in an election. If the party that over eight years turned a... surplus into the most significant growth in national debt by far in the history of the country and left this president with a $1.3tn deficit when he walked in the door and an economic crisis, let them campaign on fiscal integrity."

Expect to see the story fleshed out in the coming weeks.

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The senior senator, the Democratic leader in the Senate from Nevada is in a whole heap of trouble. It was never going to be easy for Harry Reid to hold his seat in November's elections. It just got a whole lot harder. He is the Republicans' number one target and they've scored some hits over the weekend after revelations in a new book about the 2008 campaign.

I have no doubt the row about what he said during the campaign about Obama's chances of becoming president have decreased his chance of staying senator. That's politics. But is it fair?

Indeed is what he said racist, or in any other way reprehensible? thinks it is racist. The Kansas Star calls the remarks "stinking racist comments". A left wing blogger says it is "ignorant stereotyping". Mr Reid himself refers to the comments as "improper".

But what has irritated me about the flood of articles is that there has been a lot of nudging and winking but few have come out and said what they find offensive.

So let's have a look at what he actually said. The comments come from a book out this week, .The authors say Reid "was wowed by Obama's oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama - a 'light-skinned' African American 'with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,' as he later put it privately."

It seems to me the are three parts to this.

First, talking about a "Negro dialect" sounds to my ears just curiously old- fashioned. "Negro" itself is an odd word to use these days - but is it inherently racist ? The part about "dialect" seems simply inaccurate, although suggested it is indeed a term from the past. But it is obvious that there are accents that could identify someone as black, or white, or southern or rural or a host of other identities.

The second, really embarrassing part is that Reid is suggesting that the leader of his party can adopt an accent at will, when it suits. Not good to be snide about the boss. But the point he makes is trivial. The skill is hardly unique. Tony Blair could do public school or London at will. He'd have a go at Scottish or Northern and I even heard a moment in his last election campaign when he put on a French accent after attending a school French lesson. It is something many politicians do, literally without thinking about it.

But the guts of what Reid was saying was that many American voters were still pretty racist but some wouldn't see Obama as "really" black. He thought Obama was acceptable to the electorate because he was light-skinned and didn't have a voice that identified him as black. That seems to be Reid's attempt to describe a state of affairs that may be unpleasant, but may be true. He was explaining the lie of the land as he saw it, not endorsing the views he outlined. If you can't do that you are no good as a strategist.

One of the worrying things about American political discourse is that some (mainly white) people regard any reference to race as "racist" without looking at the content of what is being said. Maybe some are embarrassed that Reid's analysis may be correct.

Over to you.

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the Obama administration said in the midst of economic meltdown and the same must go for the attempted bombing of a transatlantic jet as it flew into Detroit on Christmas Day.

Borrowing that sign from Harry Truman's desk - "" - is a bit of a hostage to fortune. But his advisors must hope that taking personal responsibility will go down well with the American people. Apparently, it worked for JFK. He said the same thing after the Bay of Pigs debacle. His approval ratings shot up. Only later did he fire the head of the CIA. By the way, Mr Obama is only following a tradition - .

More importantly, Mr Obama has rounded on his Republican critics. They attack him for not using the term "war on terror". This is not surprising - it is an article of liberal faith that you cannot wage war on abstract nouns. But he , not for the first time.

"We are at war. We are at war against al-Qaeda, a far-reaching network of violence and hatred that attacked us on 9/11, that killed nearly 3,000 innocent people, and that is plotting to strike us again. And we will do whatever it takes to defeat them," he said.

But the nub of the criticism of Mr Obama is that by trying to close Guantanamo Bay, and by treating militants as criminals not enemies of the state, he is weak.

There is little doubt al-Qaeda scored a major victory over Detroit, even though no-one was badly hurt. After all, the core aim of al-Qaeda militants is not simply to kill people but to terrorise them, and so effect political change. The US is very jittery at the moment.

The criticism of some, immediately after the Christmas Day plot, was that Mr Obama was too cool, not emotional enough - in fact, insufficiently terrified. There is at least an argument that the most potent allies of the militants, the unwitting foot solders of al-Qaeda's cause, are all those columnists and bloggers who want to raise the status of the enemy from mere common criminal to warrior, and who worry that the US is not being sufficiently hysterical. The president seems aware that there is more ways than one for a militant group to win.

"We will not succumb to a siege mentality that sacrifices the open society and liberties and values that we cherish as Americans, because great and proud nations don't hunker down and hide behind walls of suspicion and mistrust. That is exactly what our adversaries want, and so long as I am president, we will never hand them that victory. We will define the character of our country, not some band of small men intent on killing innocent men, women and children," he said on Thursday.

A poke in the eye for former Vice-President Dick Cheney at the end of that, followed up by a plea for unity, confidence and optimism, continuing: "That's what it means to be strong in the face of violent extremism."

Mr Obama is suggesting that it is his critics who have shown weakness and fear by abandoning American values. It is a bold attempt to turn this shambles into a statement that he is the really tough one, just tough in his own way.

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Three top Democratic politicians have thrown in the towel, inviting comment that they are running scared, sure of a drubbing in November's elections.

, .

Its not all bad news for the Democrats. by bowing out.

After two decades in the Senate, the Connecticut senator won't go for a sixth term.

He says that he loved his job but the events of the last year had made him take stock of life. He was very aware of his current political standing but that wasn't the reason to go. But it was time to step aside.

What's this about?

As chairman of the Senate banking committee he declared that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were "fundamentally strong". Then the ethics committee cleared him of wrongdoing over a cheap mortgage deal but said being put on a bank's VIP list should have raised "red flags".

The Democrats can't afford to have a toxic link in the public's mind running from "Big Government" to "Big Banking". Who can hate Wall Street the most will surely be a feature of these elections.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal will have a better shot at holding the seat.

But and Governor Bill Ritter in Colorado must make it easier for Republicans to win.

In Radio 4's look-ahead to 2010, I tipped Colorado as the place to be as it had tight races for Governor, Senate and House. It just got tighter.

The party that wins the White House can't be surprised if it loses seats in the midterms. That's the way it goes.

The danger for President Obama is that some of his most active supporters during the election will feel disillusioned. While they won't vote against their party, they may not turn out, or not campaign with great enthusiasm.

I just don't buy the line that after last year's election people are flooding back to the conservative cause. But the people who lost the election feel like rebels with a cause.

The President's intention to focus on jobs and the economy this year is well known, but there are at least a couple of problems.

First "events, dear boy, events". After the Detroit plot part of Obama's focus, and all of the media's, has been on national security. Of course, politicians can deal with more than one issue at a time. But the media can't, and voters get their impressions through us.

There is an even more fundamental problem: what does he do about jobs and the economy? There are no new measures in the pipeline, no new narrative to tell. Sure he can talk about it al lot but that won't always get headlines. New Labour's one-time tactic of repeatedly re-announcing the same policy is not a good one to follow. There will be a Democratic fight-back but it hasn't started yet.

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After President Obama's statement, one network pundit described him as "smouldering".

That rather summons images of a windswept Heathcliff, but he was certainly stern and cross.

We are used to politicians sliding around the blame game, happy to point fingers at their political opponents, but often unwilling to own up that Government has failed.

True, the president was very far from saying that he personally had made a mess of it, but look at his language:

"Our intelligence community failed to connect these dots... that's not acceptable and I will not tolerate it... it was a failure to integrate and understand the intelligence."

The president doesn't do anger easily, indeed was criticised for failing to emote fury after the plot itself, but it can't have been a comfortable meeting.

He was apparently blunter than in front of the cameras. One news agency quotes him as saying "it was a screw up, and we only just dodged the bullet".

But one of the reasons senior politicians don't often blame the people who work for them is that they are aware it could end in tears.

I am told that some in the CIA are feeling rather mistreated and unloved by this administration and, if not actually mutinous, are pretty disgruntled.

It is a dangerous business for governments to annoy the police or the military, and I guess the same goes for spies.

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President Obama is holding a meeting with all his intelligence chiefs to hear why they think wasn't picked up earlier. It is not going to be a comfortable day for the hydra headed US intelligence community.

Much of the discomfort will not be down to Obama but . He's the top military intelligence officer in Afghanistan and he's published .

Extraordinary, for the level of scorn at the failure of his own service, American military intelligence, in Afghanistan over the last eight years: journalistic cliches like "damning" and "scathing" spring to mind.

But it is also extraordinary because this is not the leak of a high confidential memo meant for the eyes of four star generals and top politicians: it is published openly by a think tank, the centre for a New American Security. Remember this is not by an ex-CIA officer a policy wonk, but a serving officer, General McCrystal's senior intelligence officer. He says he's done it this way so as many people as possible read his words.

Many operatives in the field may choke on their rations when they see what Major General Flynn has to say. He says "the vast intelligence apparatus is unable to answer fundamental questions about the environment in which US and allied forces operate and the people they seek to persuade. Ignorant of local economics and landowners, hazy about who the powerbrokers are and how they might be influenced, incurious about the correlations between various development projects and the levels of cooperation among villagers, and disengaged from people in the best position to find answers".

His basic argument isn't that they are all rubbish at the job, but that they are doing the wrong sort of job. Too focused on the enemy, on detailed analysis of road side bombs and on giving power point presentations to the most senior officers. Not able to see and, more importantly, tell the big picture of the country they are in. He urges them to get out of headquarters, work with soldiers on the ground, talk to people and act more like journalists, as well as historian and librarians. Interestingly he says that 90% of intelligence work these days is what he calls "open source", and quotes a former head of intelligence saying that the job should be more Sherlock Holmes than James Bond.

He says a single-minded obsession with IEDs (roadside bombs to you and me) is understandable but inexcusable if local commanders can't outsmart insurgents as a result and concludes "the intelligence community - the brains behind the bullish might of military forces - seems much too mesmerized by the red of the Taliban's cape. If this does not change, success in Afghanistan will depend on the dubious premise that a bull will not tire as quickly as a Russian bear". This is part of the argument between "counter terrorism" and "counter insurgency" and it is slightly horrifying if American intelligence hasn't been routinely doing the sort of analysis he suggests (I am pretty certain British intelligence sees this as fundamental), but if I was out there I would still want operatives who knew about nasty devices lurking in the ditches.

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I am back after the holidays. Christmas day was bracketed by breaking news on health care on Christmas Eve and the underpants bomber on Boxing Day, but for the last few days I have been enjoying some time with the family.

One of the best things we did was see Avatar. Stupendous. Exhilarating. Extraordinary. I never thought 3D could work. The technology is stunning. I admit I am something of a science fiction buff, but I think most people are going to be blown away by this film. Predictably, columnists who live to attack whatever is successful and put the counter-intuitive point of view are having a field day.

But the criticism that has intrigued me is the charge that the film is .

I have tried in writing this not to blow the plot, but inevitably there are some spoilers. For those who don't know already, the story centres on a conflict between greedy corporate human invaders and the planet's inhabitants, 10-foot tall, blue-skinned people with rather feline features and tails. argues that "Avatar is a fantasy about ceasing to be white, giving up the old human meatsack to join the blue people, but never losing white privilege."

With a certain accuracy critics have pointed out that all the "human" characters are played by white actors and all the blue, cat-like Na'vi are played by non-whites. With a degree of American insularity they also say that because they use bows and arrows and wear feathers they are "really" native Americans. This ignores tribal indigenous people from New Guinea to Brazil, so deliberately misses a wider point.

The debate in the US is conditioned by the long-running argument among sci-fi writers and fans about the "". It is a term coined by black critics who noted white authors often featured non-white characters possessed of a certain sort of natural wisdom, mystic powers, who play sidekick to the white hero and often sacrifice themselves for the central character. They are a variant on the much-older ideal of the "noble savage".

If I have understood correctly, the critics say this is demeaning because the character, who need not actually be black, but native American or some other ethnic group, acts only to help the whites central to the story, and isn't part of a racial group, doesn't have a back story, or a fully developed character but is essentially a plot device. I'd note that American fiction has quite often featured a "magic janitor" and I think the key is what the author perceives on a very basic level as otherness as much as race.

The term surfaced in the political arena during the last presidential elections when David Ehrenstein suggested Barack Obama was a magical negro: "Like a comic-book superhero, Obama is there to help, out of the sheer goodness of a heart we need not know or understand. For as with all Magic Negroes, the less real he seems, the more desirable he becomes."

It is a thoughtful article, disturbing for its unspoken assumption that Obama is a self-constructed stereotype, not a real person and that "authentic" black people behave in a certain way.

In any case the term was gleefully taken up by Obama's opponents and set to the tune of Puff the Magic Dragon. You might guess their purpose was not to advance post-structuralist criticism but to earn the licence to repeat the naughty word "negro" and make fun of the candidate.

Thank the powers, of whatever race, that no-one has suggested that any character in Avatar is "really" the president. Although I thought I spotted Donald Rumsfeld on the big screen. The criticism of Avatar is an extension of the "magical Negro" idea. Indeed at one level it is an inversion of it: "the magical Caucasian" who turns out to be an even nobler savage than the common and garden, bred-to-it variety. Tarzan, Lord of Greystokes, Lord of the Jungle has to be top of the tree in this game. The central complaint is that in Avatar it takes a white hero to lead the natives.

This seems to miss two points. The first is simply about the way narrative works. The critics' version of the film would be very dull. Bad people land on planet. Good people defeat them - virtuous but not much of a story arc. An emotional journey, learning and changing are better narrative. Raising age-old questions about whether it is better to be true to your values and your friends rather than your country (species) is more thought-provoking than most Hollywood blockbusters manage.

My second objection is more profound. I strongly believe the racial divide has been the driving force in American history, and continues to play a huge, and often under-discussed role in its politics. I am not one to underestimate its power.

But that doesn't mean everything is about that debate. One of the reasons I like sci-fi, apart from the escapism, is the way it explores political ideas, old and new. The film is actually a rather old-fashioned, liberal, morality tale. As in many futures imagined by authors over the last several decades the company has replaced the state as the agent of colonialism and greedy conquest. Then there is the mainstay of Hollywood morality, the underdog mounting a ferocious fight-back. Added to the mix is a healthy dose of new age Gaia-ism (Pandoraism?). The idea of weaker opponents fighting back against a military force with an apparently overwhelming technological superiority, aided by the enemy within, surely echoes not only Vietnam but conflicts much closer to us in time and space. Perhaps it is easier for American critics to think it is about race.

Oddly enough I read a rather subtler take on the idea of technology versus nature just a few days after seeing the film. My wife bought me 's Fallen Dragon for Christmas. It is much more compact and better written than his past sprawling space operas but equally packed with ideas. One chapter sees the company's military defeated in a way very familiar to viewers of Avatar. The twist is, the planetary defenders of Santa Chico are not aboriginal but come from elsewhere, post-humans genetically mutated into a state of harmony with the local flora and fauna, which are themselves itself genetically uplifted into a state of scientifically ennobled post savagery. The natives are originally from California. I always thought the West Coast was magic.

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