Anthony Jenkins/The Globe and MailThe Globe and Mail
Change? I'd like mine back." The badge handed out by Republicans at the Minnesota state fair captures a veering national mood in the United States. Last year, Americans voted for change; this year, they worry about their change. Shocked by the scale of government spending to prevent recession from turning into depression, gobsmacked by the prospect of more gazillions in deficits and national debt, they are now told that President Barack Obama's health-care reform will cost nearly $1-trillion over the next decade.
A summer of sometimes hysterical town-hall meetings has not left Mr. Obama winning the argument for reform. According to the polls, most of that large majority of Americans who do have health-care insurance are reasonably content with what they've got. They fear that the proposed reform would leave them worse off - as well as costing the country more. (The first fear is largely unfounded, the second less so.)
Just 7 1/2 months into his term, Mr. Obama has reached for the American legislative equivalent of a nuclear weapon. A special address to both houses of Congress - over and above the inaugural and State of the Union addresses - is an exceptional step, last taken by George W. Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. According to veteran political commentator Mark Shields, Lyndon B. Johnson delivered only two such addresses, one after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the other on civil rights. Franklin D. Roosevelt gave only one, to ask Congress to declare war after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
And Mr. Obama used it for this …
He delivered a fine speech Wednesday night. He made the case for reform compellingly, acknowledging the fundamental problem that the United States spends "1 1/2 times more per person on health care than any other country, but we aren't any healthier for it."
It was also a quite partisan speech. Some Republicans rewarded it with heckling, and one even with a shout of "You lie!" (for which he has now apologized) - disrespect almost unheard of on such an occasion. That may not have helped the Republicans, but nor did it reinforce Mr. Obama's authority and mystique.
Altogether, the extraordinary means chosen by the President seemed ill-matched to the likely end. Even if the speech helps him garner the necessary public support and congressional votes, it will result in only a modest, compromise version of health-care reform. The bill that will probably emerge from the congressional sausage factory will address the most pressing social problem: the fact that nearly one in six Americans is without health-care insurance. It will not address the fundamental economic problem: the grotesquely soaring cost of the system.
Afghanistan, the "health care" of Mr. Obama's foreign policy, is also not going well. Under the noses of U.S. and European soldiers and election monitors, President Hamid Karzai's government has been honing its skills at election fraud. The administration is locked in a debate about whether to send even more soldiers, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and special envoy Richard Holbrooke urge, prompting grim comparisons with Johnson's buildup in Vietnam. It is almost impossible to imagine a clear-cut "victory" in Afghanistan.
And where Mr. Obama charged Mr. Bush with "doing" Iraq at the expense of Afghanistan, his critics now charge that he may be focusing on Afghanistan at the expense of what is a truly decisive theatre in the long-term struggle against Islamist terrorism: Pakistan.
Two explanations are offered for Mr. Obama's travails. Democrats say history (and, more particularly, Mr. Bush) has dealt him a very difficult hand. Republicans say he is not playing it well. Both may be true.
The economic situation he inherited could hardly have been worse. Even though there are signs of an upturn, or at least a slowing downturn, unemployment is at the brink of 10 per cent. Taxpayers will be paying for the bailout and stimulus packages for decades.
Health-care reform is one of his country's biggest and most intractable domestic issues, and it has grown bigger and more intractable with every administration that failed to tackle it.
Abroad, Mr. Obama has inherited the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Islamist breeding ground in Pakistan, the neglected challenge of climate change and the rise of China - to name just a few of his problems.
Yet it is also true that Mr. Obama has not so far proved himself adept at using the tools at his disposal to - in one of his favourite phrases - get it done. His personal style remains a delight: He is cool, civilized, articulate, humorous and humane. But he has still to show that he is as good at the prose of government as he is at the poetry of campaigning.
On health care, in particular, his administration seems to have underestimated the difficulties. His charm, articulacy and obvious decency in his summer town-hall meetings could not make up for the fact that there was no single, clear "Obama plan" for him to explain and defend.
He went some way to remedy that Wednesday, although it remains unclear how he will pay for the changes without - as he promised - adding "a dime" to the deficit.
"His wax wings having melted, he is the man who fell to Earth," neoconservative commentator Charles Krauthammer gloats. But Mr. Obama is not Icarus yet. Many presidents have recovered from worse lows and gone on to stronger second terms. And Mr. Krauthammer may have forgotten that the other guy with wax wings flew low and made it across the sea. His name was Daedalus, and he was a consummate artificer.
That's what America needs now: not a wordsmith to get it said, but a politician to get it done. Step forward, Barack Daedalus. Your time has come.
Timothy Garton Ash is a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.