A voice of reason and leadership has emerged in recent days among those addressing the economic crisis in Europe, currently the most urgent and dire challenge facing the international community.

Unlike in the past, that voice is not however, the president of the United States, who has remained strangely quiet on this subject despite its direct implications for virtually all of the core U.S. economic issues that are his stated top priorities. Nor is it that of his secretary of the treasury who, though more visible on this issue recently, has not instilled confidence with statements that have, for example, asserting that under no circumstances would European leaders let their institutions fail, even though that has been precisely what they have been doing for years now.

Instead, the new voice comes from rather unlikely roots -- a scandal-rocked organization whose future value to the international community had, in the not-so-distant past, been questioned and a prior post that can only be seen as a potential drag on her credibility.

That voice however, belongs to IMF chief Christine Lagarde, and it has been so direct and crystal clear, so unafraid and so thoughtful, that within mere weeks of assuming office she has quickly gained recognition as one of the most important of the world's leaders.

Take her most recent remarks on the euro crisis and its international implications. In the first instance, she has crisply and accurately warned that a "vicious circle is gaining momentum" that could not only upset european efforts at bailing out its weakest economies but that also poses a threat to the world's financial system and to many of its so-called strongest economies, such as those that are the engines of european growth and that of the United States. At the center of that vicious circle she placed "political dysfunction" that had produced what has amounted to policy paralysis and may have us on the verge of a "dangerous new phase" of this on-going economic calamity.

Further, even as Central Banks agreed to pump in more money to prop up faltering banks, she suggested more might be needed. "Balance sheet uncertainty" was the immediate culprit, she observed, noting it existed at the government, bank and household levels. She accurately cited this as the core risk we face but then, with wisdom greater than most European and American political leaders, noted that debt solutions should not be so severe that they undermine the equally crucial issue of growth in Western economies.

She specifically and directly assailed "fiscal austerity that chips away at social protections; perceptions of unfairness in Wall Street being given priority over Main Street; and legacies of growth in many countries that predominantly benefited the top echelons of society." One can only hope her remarks resonated with all her new neighbors in Washington.

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Earlier today I received the following email from an admirer:

You are a disgusting pig. I pray to God that you get brain cancer."

This was noteworthy on several levels. First, I don't even know the person who sent this. Typically, I need to know someone for a while before they reach that kind of conclusion. Second, the recent economic shocks have not, as one might have hoped, sent a message to America that we are all in this together and it is time for a new civility in public discourse. Third, for sure I will never use my cell phone again without a hands free device.

My fan was responding to a quotation attributed to me that appeared in the New York Times. The article, by the dependably insightful Helene Cooper, was entitled "A Test for Obama's View of a One-Term Presidency." It was an otherwise excellent piece which addressed Obama's stated desire to be a good one-term president rather than a mediocre two-term president. Its point was that the current challenges faced by the United States may force him to choose between these two options because of the fearsome demands running for re-election is likely to make on his time and thus his ability to effectively lead the country through and out of the current, enduring, complex economic crisis.

Personally, as I have stated before, even the president's most ardent supporters have to acknowledge the realities of a modern presidential campaign: He must work tirelessly to raise perhaps $1 billion and then spend essentially a year fending off attacks and implementing a complex, demanding strategy likely to be so taxing that it will be very, very difficult for him. Oh yeah and he also needs to give the rescue of the U.S. economy the attention it warrants. I'm a supporter of the president and I think he is a considerably better choice to hold the office than anyone who is a declared Republican candidate for president or who has been mentioned as a potential such candidate. In some extreme cases, the Republican candidates would have me shopping for real estate in New Zealand.

That said, the Times article due to the limits of space involved truncated one of my views in a way that I believe triggered the brain cancer greeting I received this morning. The story said:

Mr. Obama, Mr. Rothkopf argues, has to focus in the next 18 months on getting the economy back on track for the long haul, even if that means pushing for politically unpalatable budget cuts, including real - but hugely unpopular - reductions in Social Security, other entitlement programs and the military."

While everything in this statement is true with respect to my views, it is distorted because it refers to only part of what I said when I was interviewed. The question posed to me was, to paraphrase, "How does the president get a meaningful deal done and what would the deal look like?"

My response was that in order to address our twin crises--- unemployment and the deficit -- he would have to seek to produce significant, job-creating stimulus and in exchange for that, which will be resisted by the Republicans, do a serious budget deal. That serious deal in turn would have to involve painful concessions on entitlements by the president and the Democrats in order to win Republican concessions on increasing revenues and producing meaningful defense cuts. While such an approach sounds implausible, it is also the only way for America to get back on our feet.

Reasonable observers -- and even angry, frustrated, hurlers of invective at strangers -- will have to admit that regarding all the elements of such a grand bargain there are ways to approach the problem that could appeal to both sides, to reason and stay within the rules of arithmetic (the real kind you learned in elementary school, not the Washington variety). So, for example, you could produce a stimulus that made sense to fiscal conservatives by embracing and building up ideas like an infrastructure bank that would use limited federal funds leveraged up by major private investment to provide the urgently need renovation America's transportation and IT networks require. It's an idea that is supported by both the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and by Sens. John Kerry and Kay Bailey Hutchison. You could also move investment spending onto a capital budget thus forcing the Congress to treat money that is likely to bring a return differently from that which is going straight out the window … as companies already do.

On the budget deal, any superficial consideration of our debt problems has to acknowledge that the current structure of our entitlement programs is unsustainable. Further, proposals like raising the retirement age or reducing benefits for rich people who don't need them or creating more competition and fairer pricing, make sense in any case. Personally, just so you know where I am coming from, I believe the only way we will get there is some kind of new, national single-payer plan that encourages competition … see, for example, how they handle this in Switzerland. But since that's not going to happen soon, we should consider some of these other basic steps. And one reason we need to is in order to pry loose more revenue. We're going to have to accept a value-added tax (VAT) and/or a carbon tax very soon. We can trade some of those revenues for tax reform that the Republicans want, especially for a corporate tax code simplification that will help attract needed foreign investment to the United States. Should the Bush tax cuts be allowed to expire? Of course. Urgently. It was a mistake to extend them. It was a mistake to implement them in the first place. And America needs to get over the idea that we need to spend more than every other country in the world on defense added up in order to be secure. Want a place to start there? Let's get the heck out of Afghanistan and Iraq ASAP.

The point is, my quote in the Times offered only a shard of my views, and one that might understandably offend when taken out of context. That said, when put into context, I am sure there is something in my views to offend everyone. Going forward we need to look for that. If everyone is howling, then we are probably doing something right.

For the first time since records have been kept, Washington's heat index today rose above its bullshit index. Which is saying something given the levels of swirling crap that have that have been emitted during the debt-ceiling debate. It's piling up like snow banks on the street corners. And none of it is made any easier to bear by a heat index that is supposed to hit 116 degrees today. In a city full of gas bags and hot heads, that's just plain dangerous.

Both the heat and the headlines have the same effect on average citizens. They make us cranky. Personally, I feel the strong urge to punch someone right in the snout right now. I'd prefer it were one of the goons who has seen fit to criticize President Obama and Speaker Boehner for actually trying to break the irrational debt debate impasse and get something done. But frankly, it could be anyone. I'd pop the slender loris featured on the Washington Post's iPad app yesterday if it crawled over to me right now … and frankly, I have a kind of soft spot in my heart for lorises, slender and otherwise.

So, instead, I will vent my blogger's spleen. I will do this by answering for each of you the following question: Who were the world's biggest assholes this week? Surely this will prove a healthy distraction from the muffled sounds of passersby being swallowed up by the bubbling pavement beneath my window.

Such a big world, so many choices, where to begin? Well, let's start with a definition. Asshole may be an intemperate term but it is not an imprecise one (and if it is one that offends you I strongly suggest that you stop reading three sentences ago … and please don't bother to write that FP should not use such language. I agree. The editors agree. But it's hot. So go jump in a lake. And I'm perfectly happy to spend my whole evening deleting your prissy criticisms from the comments below.) Anyway, the point is that the word refers not to purely evil people but to jerks, irritating people who combine their bad behavior with a certain offensive ridiculousness.

So who are the world's top ten this week? (And please note we are not including lifetime achievers who already have had their jerseys retired such as Hamid Karzai, Eric Cantor, or those wonderful folks at Focus on the Family.)

10. Prince Andrew
Blue bloods always have an edge in competitions like this, pampered, in-bred fossils of obsolescent and offensive social systems that they are. And few royal families have produced so many memorable jerks as the House of Windsor, including first-ballot member of the first class of the Asshole Hall of Fame, Prince Philip. But the upper-class twit never falls far from the royal family tree and Andrew wins mention this week for having to resign his post as ambassador for British trade because of his long string of bad judgments, questionable actions and bone-headed misdeeds including, notably and unsurprisingly, his befriending of convicted sex offender.

9. Chris Brown
Beating up women was not enough for this narcissistic so-called musician. This week, reliable sources like TMZ reported that Brown was that special kind of over-achiever who is able to irritate and infuriate on many levels at once. He did so by revealing himself to his neighbors in LA as That Guy in the apartment building who reportedly has blaringly loud parties at all hours, carves his initials in the elevator, runs his racing dogs up and down the hallways and leaves his ridiculous male-enhancement-mobiles in handicapped parking spaces. And then, after the stories broke, he complained he was being picked on. Poor Chris. Guy may pack a punch (on a date) but can't stand being the punch line he has become. Being bitch-slapped by karma's no fun, is it?

8. Tim Pawlenty
Bland, nice guy Tim would seem like the last fellow to end up on a list like this but when he was the first to take the bait and question whether Michele Bachmann's migraines would make her unfit for the presidency, he jumped way up toward the front of the line. Sexist much? Seriously, whoever leaked the story to the right-wing rag that first ran it deserves the spot even more than Pawlenty, but frankly, the former Minnesota governor needs the break. This is the highest he has placed on any list or poll in months.

7. Employees of the Korean Central News Agency
After threatening that North Korea would launch a "merciless retaliatory sacred war" against the United States, the spin doctors of the hermit kingdom continued their tradition of hyperbolic overstatement that has made depictions of the country like that in Team America: World Police seem like a Frontline documentary. In its priceless article "Reading Between North Korea's Lines," the New York Times details how the robot-trolls of this small apparatus of Kim Jong-Il's state machine regularly pump out the greatest howlers of the world's almost always howling diplomatic communiqués. From attacks on their neighbors to the south as "half-baked, extra-large Philistines" to referring to Hillary Clinton as "the little schoolgirl" these folks at least deserve credit for making propaganda laughable again.

6. Allen West
Speaking of half-baked name-callers, Florida Republican Congressman Allen West rocketed into the news this week the only way he could: By lashing out against fellow Congressperson and DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz with a slimy viciousness that set a new low even for the United States Congress. Calling her "the most vile, unprofessional and despicable member" of the House, West not only won a few more seconds of fame than his otherwise completely undistinguished career warranted but no doubt shall also receive sanctions from the Congress for his behavior. Way to go after a colleague, Allen. Who's your campaign manager, Chris Brown?

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It was just a lie.

For all the many good and earnest efforts of the Obama administration in its two-and-a-half years in office, there is one area in which the president has not only let the country down, he has embarrassed himself and his party.

He vowed to keep the corrupting influence of money and special interests out of politics. He campaigned on the idea. When he took office, he made a great show of banning lobbyists from appointed offices. It was a silly idea. Many of the most qualified people available for government jobs had to register as lobbyists. What's more, the people that hired the lobbyists, were not precluded from the jobs even though they were actually the ones directing lobbying efforts and footing the bill for them. Further, the approach rewarded people who probably should have registered as lobbyists but didn't. Finally, lawyers who represented and advised clients and industries were not precluded or bankers that financed them were not barred although they were every bit as compromised by association with special interests as were the people performing the narrowly defined functions that fell under the lobbying rubric. Overall, the approach did not work out very well and gradually the administration has let former lobbyists start to slip through the cracks.

Worse, the president has let monied interests infect his administration in an even more insidious way. First, having raised more money than any presidential candidate in history, he played a role in actually enhancing what was already the most corrupting influence in American politics -- the dependence of office holders on the rich. While the president often spoke of the small dollar donations to his campaign, you don't raise three quarters of a billion dollars without large aggregations of bigger checks.

Those checks, by definition can only come from the affluent. What's more, because campaign finance laws limit the amount individuals or families can donate, the big amounts must come from "bundlers" who work to get clusters of givers together and can deliver money in big chunks to the campaign. Naturally, those bundlers often turn to networks of colleagues at work or individuals they meet in the course of their business lives or who live in their affluent neighborhoods. Not surprisingly, these people represent only a thin slice of America's population and often they represent heavy concentrations of people from individual companies or industries.

No candidate in American history ever raised more money from Wall Street and we have seen where that got us -- toothless financial reforms, practically no prosecutions, programs that enabled Wall Street to recover while Main Street continued to suffer and, two years after a financial crisis in which America was threatened by institutions that were too big to fail, more too big to fail institutions than ever before.

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Things are so tough even the past isn't what it used to be. That is the message of Woody Allen's lovely, good-hearted new movie Midnight in Paris. While the movie's goal is to enhance our appreciation for the present by puncturing the "golden age syndrome" of those who yearn for impossibly beautiful cultural yesteryears, it inadvertently sends an important political message as well.

Starting this summer, a parade of Republican presidential wannabes will offer a message of recycled hope, promising to restore America to good old days goodness. Candidates and possible candidates like Tim Pawlenty and Sarah Palin already invoke Ronald Reagan so often it's hard not to conclude that he has become the reverse Voldemort of the Republican Party, "He Who Must Always Be Named." They and their Republican primary opponents will call so often for it to be "morning in America" that I wouldn't be surprised if Denny's sponsors Palin's tour bus to promote its Grand Slam breakfasts.

But of course, for those of us who actually lived through the 1980s, it was mostly bad haircuts, Iran-Contra and the music of Dexys Midnight Runners.

Similarly, there will be efforts from candidates from both parties to associate themselves with past "golden ages" of U.S. foreign policy. President Obama will certainly cite the prosperity of the Clinton years or seek to channel the charisma of John F. Kennedy or the toughness of Harry Truman or the true leader of the free world stature of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Republicans will -- as they did after the Osama raid -- seek to assert that Bush 43-era resoluteness was key to fighting terror. Or they will argue that Bush 41-era mastery of the end of the Cold War proves that the GOP knows foreign policy best, that they can stand up to evil like Reagan did to Gorbachev or even that they are the party of Nixon-Kissingerian savvy or Eisenhower's ability to epitomize everything you want in a commander-in-chief.

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It says something about Gary Locke's tenure as secretary of commerce that it is clearly a promotion for him to have been named to an ambassadorial post and sent to the other side of the world. It also says something about the post he is being offered -- ambassador to China -- by far the U.S. government's most important diplomatic posting in the world. Locke is an excellent choice for the new job and will undoubtedly excel in the role. In fact, there is really only one thing the Obama administration can do to make this smart appointment even better: It can not appoint a replacement for Locke.

Locke is a soft-spoken, detail-oriented, thoughtful, lawyerly fellow, which is not surprising given that in addition to being the former governor of Washington, he is also a lawyer. As a Chinese-speaking, trade-smart Chinese-American from a state with important export ties to China and having the stature that comes of cabinet and state governor posts, he's an ideal choice for the Beijing job.

His tenure as commerce secretary was muted because his particular skill set was not particularly suited to being a cheerleader for U.S. industry. He has no bombast in him, and for a politician he is singularly devoid of the hail-fellow-well-met gene. But beyond his personal traits, one of the reasons he struggled as commerce secretary was that the Commerce Department itself is such a mishmash of agencies with competing missions that the reality is that the vast majority of people who have led the agency have disappeared without a trace into its bowels.

Frankly, it should be considered a destination of choice by the folks over at the federal witness protection program.

President Obama and those closest to him -- including one of the few people who have ever successfully led the Commerce Department and then gone on to bigger and better things, White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley -- recognize this and have very wisely and none too soon undertaken a review of whether or not to restructure the agency along with the other white elephants, redundancies, and lost causes of the federal bureaucracy. The effort is being led by former business exec Jeff Zients, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, and as a former management consultant, CEO, and very successful entrepreneur, an ideal choice for the mission.

While it is reported that Locke himself only heard of the president's intention to announce the initiative to rationalize the structure of departments including his own a few minutes before the announcement was made, the idea is a sound one that should be well-received by both parties in the current atmosphere of frugality -- or at least expressed frugality -- in Washington.

What Obama should do is appoint an acting commerce secretary to serve as a place holder. (Perhaps appointing Zients into a kind of caretaker role to oversee the change would be a good step. An analogy is the role Elizabeth Warren is currently playing re: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.) Putting someone new and "permanent" in the existing commerce job would a.) Immediately create an opponent to any meaningful restructuring and b.) Be quite tough if they knew there was a serious effort to dismantle the agency afoot. Then, the president and his team should take the steps that have been obviously called for by many of us who have worked at the Commerce Department and on the economic side of the U.S. government for years. They would include:

• Collecting all the trade-related elements of the U.S. government into a single, integrated agency. Instead of more than a dozen different such agencies, you would have one place where a cabinet secretary led a policy development team that would determine how to use the tools at its disposal. Those tools would include a trade negotiating shop (formerly USTR), a trade enforcement shop (elements of commerce plus bits and pieces from other agencies), a trade promotion shop (built around the International Trade Administration plus bits and pieces from more than 12 other agencies), and a trade finance shop (OPIC, Eximbank, TDA, etc.). Each such "shop" would be led by an undersecretary.

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The problem with experience is that it doesn't prepare you for what you have never seen before. This is also a challenge for experts, for whom their knowledge of the past is usually an advantage, but sometimes can be their worst limitation.

This has certainly been the case in the past several weeks with the events in Tunisia and Egypt. Old Middle East hands approached the matter with great caution, fearing instability, because if it followed past patterns, it would most likely end in unhappiness. The most likely outcomes they could foresee were either: the further cementing of the status quo or an invitation to something much worse.

History taught them that popular uprisings in the region typically led either to replacing one despot with another or perhaps to trading the evils of autocracy for the evils of theocracy.

And we would do well to consider the fact that even now, as Egypt is awash in euphoria, that the experts may be right. And they would do well to consider that perhaps what has happened in Egypt is something entirely new.

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We are two years into the Obama administration and judging by the president's progress to date, assessments being made on this the second anniversary of his time in office are likely to be viewed not as midterm grades but as his first quarter report card. With an increasingly confident, experienced president at the helm of a country that seems to be gradually creeping toward economic recovery and with a divided opposition in search of a leader, Obama's re-election prospects are looking better and better.

Still, the reality is that any assessment of the president's progress to date must be taken with several large pillars of salt. First, as I have noted before, the first two years of any presidency are learning curve years and seldom contain either the highlights of a presidency or even a very clear signal as to its ultimate character. Second, almost inevitably political and policy types overstate the influence of the president on the great issues of the day or even on those factors that weigh in his or her re-election. As is the case with most presidents, Obama's future will most likely be dictated by exogenous developments over which he has only fairly limited influence -- global economic trends, unanticipated actions of third parties at home and abroad, public moods that impact how presidential actions are interpreted and credit and blame allocated, etc.

Nonetheless, given that today is the second anniversary of the president's inauguration, it is a natural time to take stock and offer some quick evaluations of how he and his team are doing on foreign policy issues.

• Afghanistan-Pakistan: This is the administration's signature international issue. Unfortunately, it is also the area in which they have done the worst. Costs and troop commitments have gone way up but likelihood of a lasting, positive outcome -- say a stable AfPak region in which the extremist threat is materially diminished -- has not improved at all. It increasingly looks like pressure to get out will force the United States to accept a bad outcome in Afghanistan and the future for Pakistan is murky at best. Our lead ally, Hamid Karzai, is an unrepentant crook and our strongest supporters in Pakistan face strong opposition and are on shaky ground politically. The likely best outcome is strong man regimes in both places, no democracy, and festering threats. Further, despite the White House's lack of appreciation for Richard Holbrooke (and the hypocrisy of some them in terms of their comments in the wake of his untimely death was breathtaking), he will be missed and is already proving to be very hard to replace. Bob Gates will be even harder to replace. Grade: D
• Iran: The administration got off to a slow start in Iran, didn't express support for protesters when it should have, and has not done anything to really counteract the threat Iran poses to the region via its support for Hezbollah and Hamas and its infiltration of the politics of its neighbors. However, the carefully coordinated, tireless efforts to find an effective diplomatic-cover action response to the Iranian nuclear program has shown some promising progress of late. (And WikiLeaks helped illustrate some of those efforts for the world.) The nuclear threat remains but the way it has been handled by the Obama administration has been about as well as anyone could have done. Grade: B
• Israel-Palestine: The administration deserves credit for getting involved in this issue and not pulling back even as both of sides have done almost everything in their power to impede, delay, and complicate the process. For a change. The relationship with the Israelis has been, to be polite, fitful. And part of it is clearly due to divisions and missteps within the administration. Although blaming them is roughly akin to blaming Elin for Tiger's sins. (Sandra Bullock for Jesse James's? Charlie Sheen's ex-wife for his? Women for what men do wrong? You get the idea.) This is one case where I believe getting nowhere is about as well as could be hoped for and remaining engaged is a sign of strength. The key to a better grade going forward is whether they will break out of the box of old-think on this. My sense is that the ticking of Israel's demographic clock, the shift in global opinion, and the changing mood in the United States could actually lead to a breakthrough on this issue during the remaining (six) Obama years. Although that breakthrough could well begin with the Palestinians taking their recent Washington flag-raising to its natural next step and simply unilaterally creating a two-state reality. Grade: B
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This week, President Obama dug deep into the pool of 100 people who are considered for every senior Democratic position in Washington and came up with a couple of very good choices for top White House jobs. While those of you who follow these things might wonder if, in a country of 300 million people, there might be a few fresh names who could produce a little fresher thinking, keep it to yourself.

That's not the way things work here in Washington -- the only city in the world in which someone like George W. Bush could have been described as an outsider upon assuming an office his father had held 8 years earlier.

In the rest of the world familiarity breeds contempt. In Washington, like in some towns in the Ozarks, familiarity just breeds.

That said, there's something to be said for hiring people in top jobs who actually know what they are doing. Bill Daley, the new White House chief of staff, understands how Washington works as well as anyone. What's more, as Washington insiders go, he has a pretty rare skill set: he is actually able to speak several important languages. He is fluent in politics, business, and media and he is conversant in both D.C. and local dialects.

He has demonstrated over the past two decades great organizational skills and real perseverance. He was the quarterback who made the NAFTA war room whirr and produced one of Clinton's most important early victories. He was a Commerce secretary who did not produce a lot of headlines but who did generate trust and good will from the business community. He was one of the people Al Gore came out of his 2000 campaign feeling best about, an absolutely essential player who performed the toughest tasks while generating real loyalty among those close to him. And he was a successful business person who the moment he entered the White House increased the administration's understanding of the part of the economy that actually creates jobs many times over. While some liberal groups may decry his ties to Wall Street or his life in corporate suites, they are missing the point. There can be no successful progressive agenda that doesn't figure out how to collaborate successfully with the people actually driving U.S. growth.

There has been some minor lefty hubbub over the fact that Gene Sperling, the incoming head of the National Economic Council, once did some work for Goldman Sachs. It is revealing that those who seek to complain about this are overlooking that it was work on a project to help promote educational empowerment for some of the world's neediest. And, of course, in a job like the one Sperling is assuming, having a few contacts outside the world of inside-the-beltway wonks is actually a very good thing.

Gene has been one of the best of those wonks for a long time. He is exceptionally intelligent, extraordinarily hard-working, politically gifted and he has a truly good heart. Both he and Daley are among the "good guys", the folks in that tiny D.C. talent pool who you want to see at the top because not only do they know how to use power but they are likely to use it well.

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While President Obama may have ignored my personnel advice, he may have made excellent decisions anyway. If, as the rumor mill has it, Bill Daley, the former Commerce Secretary is to be the new chief of staff at the White House and Gene Sperling is to replace Larry Summers at the National Economic Council, Obama will have picked two pros who can both provide needed continuity and needed change. Daley knows how to get things done and is well-liked by business people. Sperling has done the job, is exceptionally smart and will run a much more open, inclusive shop than Summers … and empowering the economic cabinet is a key must-do for the Obama team.

David Brooks's op-ed in the New York Times on the uselessness of the pro and con debate about "big government" is half right and half wrong. He's right it does not matter how big or small government is but whether it works effectively and in support of a nation with the will and resources to succeed. But it is half wrong in that within the debate is a question about the appropriate role of government. Here Republicans argue that government should stay out of people's affairs and market's business wherever possible and Democrats are willing to accept a more expansive role. The reality, of course, is that no country can tackle the problems we face as a country without a major role for government. Whether the issue is infrastructure, energy policy, education, fixing what is broken fiscally, ensuring honest and fair markets, protecting the environment or preserving the peace, America's biggest challenges require the government be there and be effective. Right now though the debate sounds like two dating services that are suggesting the choice in the dating market is between Mother Theresa and Snooki. It is not even the right discussion to be having.

While it may not have been very politic for a U.S. battlefield commander in Afghanistan to liken the situation on the ground to a Tom and Jerry cartoon, it offers yet another insight into the futility of the conflict there. Richard Cohen in the Washington Post gets it exactly right when he calls this an unnecessary war and likens our tolerance of it and the public's lack of urgent interest in it to factors which could fuel our national decline, akin to what happened during the fall of the Roman and British empires. He is not overstating it. We're going bankrupt and wasting lives trying to do the impossible for a cause that's un-winnable. Every day we continue to fight in Afghanistan U.S. leaders are abusing the public's trust, killing our young and stealing from their orphaned children to pay for it.

Speaking of bankruptcy, I have a sense that Obama's "air traffic controller moment" will come when a big public pension fund goes belly up and the federal government is asked to step in to bail it out… with a long-line of similar cases on deck. He will face a dangerously slippery slope and public opinion will be heavily for giving the public workers a haircut on their benefits. Obama will face huge pressure from SEIU, one of the most important unions backing him. And he will define whether he is serious or not about pulling the United States out of this mess and getting us back on our feet by whether or not he gives in to that pressure. The right answer is to start negotiating deals downward now, walk the crisis back before it happens, reduce the benefits packages and give the states and municipalities the breathing room they need… or huge lay-offs and deteriorating public conditions are certain to result. Not to mention a big financial crisis.

I have all the respect in the world for Zbigniew Brzezinski. But his op-ed in the Times, in which he calls Chinese Premiere Hu's visit one of the most important in 30 years, while thoughtfully argued, is misleading on that core point. No doubt, the visit is more important than the last because China is more important than the last time the leaders met. However, by the same logic, the next visit will probably be more important. Further, with a leadership change in the offing, the first meetings with the next generation of leaders are almost certain to be more important still. The key issues for the two countries to resolve are longer term in nature and go to the core question of shaping a successful working relationship between two strategic rivals that are also vital partners. Right now, too much of the power in the relationship seems to have swung to the Chinese. The United States must -- through a better understanding of its own national interests and competitive advantages, through marshalling diplomatic support worldwide for its initiatives, and through regaining economic momentum and avoiding international distractions --resume a stronger stance in the relationship. It must resist the temptation to mesmerized by China hype and it must build an international coalition to counterbalance Chinese influence and ensure that before China assumes a greater role on the international stage, it is clear the country is willing to play a constructive role helping to address global challenges from combating proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to maintaining stable financial markets to fighting global warming.

The most important story in the world as 2011 begins: the continuing political unrest in Pakistan, marked by the weakening of the government's coalition over the weekend and the assassination of the prominent governor of Punjab, a Zardari supporter. A political meltdown in Pakistan is the one event that will have great powers worldwide holding their breaths (although further economic meltdown in the Eurozone and in U.S. states and localities is a close second on this watch list.)

Mike Barnicle, who is to "Morning Joe" what Uncle Joe was to "Petticoat Junction," today asserted that President Obama's recent tax deal signified a shift to the center. Since Barnicle also spent considerable time touting his love of the Boston Red Sox, we probably should not be surprised that he is confused about other matters as well. But I couldn't help but wonder when I heard the statement about Obama whether the time had actually come that we needed to start drawing people diagrams to help them find the center.

Perhaps it is due to the way Washington twists and distorts everything. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I started to realize that in the perverse world of U.S. politics, there is not just one center. There are, at least, three.

There is the expedient center. This is the one Barnicle was talking about and the one that makes partisan purists spit. (For more on this, see Keith Olbermann. Lord knows, I can't bear to watch his histrionics any more. But you might find it illuminating or weirdly fascinating, anyway.) The way you find this center is you take the extremes and you split the difference between them. This is the center about which Descartes might say, "I compromise therefore I am."

Then, there is the money center (also known as the rich dark chocolaty center or the creamy nougat center or just as the delicious candy center). This is the center where big time donors live. Watch closely and you'll see plenty of behavior, including likely upcoming White House appointments, that show they are acutely aware they may have alienated this group during the past couple years and they want them back. The money center is, of course, Wall Street and shifting to this center means adopting policies that are calculated to open their wallets come campaign time. These policies tend not to be made on a left-right spectrum but rather on a top-to-bottom scale and they always benefit the top. (Or in the case of the estate tax provisions in the current deal, the tippy tippy top.)

Both of these groups are odious to wingnuts. But neither is truly dangerous to them because from time to time, their interests overlap. However, there is one center they really fear: That's the principled center.

It's also known as the independent center. It is not found halfway between left and right but rather off that scale altogether. It is a place where decisions are made free of partisan distortions and special interest emoluments. It is a place where right is what you try to be and not a reflexive, dogma-driven political orientation.

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Stephen J. Solarz, who died Monday afternoon at the age of 70 after a long, courageous battle with cancer, was a member of the U.S. Congress' "Watergate Class" of 1974. He served 18 remarkable and illustrious years in the House of Representatives, becoming one of the Democratic Party's most respected foreign-policy leaders. He was so bold and courageous in his calls for the United States to pull back its support for the corrupt and abusive regime of Ferdinand Marcos that Corazon Aquino dubbed him "the Lafayette of the Philippines." He played an instrumental role in leading support for the first Gulf War. He attacked human rights abuses and worked to broker the end to brutal conflicts. He chaired both the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia and the Subcommittee on Africa.

With such a record, it was no surprise that he was considered for years to be a likely future secretary of State. He studied foreign affairs avidly, immersed himself in his travels, worked tirelessly and did not suffer fools lightly. I know this because when I began working for him shortly after I left graduate school, I surely qualified as a fool -- if not by disposition then by virtue of my utter ignorance. But he generously not only gave me my first professional opportunity, but for the following 30 years he patiently shared his insights, his wisdom, and his humor, and offered an example I will remember and treasure the rest of my life.

As Steve used to joke, he "represented a district that would have elected Mussolini if he were a Democrat." It was the Brooklyn of Coney Island and Midwood, of Ocean Parkway and Avenue U, a district "with more Jews than live in Tel Aviv" and thus one that not only tolerated his interest in the rest of the world but encouraged it. Having a congressman who knew and quoted Abba Eban or Yitzhak Rabin was a plus even in a country where some mind-boggling percentage of members of the House didn't (and don't) even have passports. Of course, as his press secretary I spent hours squirreled away in his offices in the district, writing press releases about new subway escalators and the thrilling periodic visits to DC where we would work on issues closer to my heart and his, from East Timor to arms control, from the Middle East to the latest diplomatic crisis.

I remember vividly the time he took me on my first visit to the White House during which he invited me in to a meeting with then-National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. Just the three of us. Me, perhaps 22 at the time. Brzezinski at his intimidating best. Solarz, not forty yet, holding his own, advancing his points with grace and eloquence.

Eloquence mattered to him. There was a school of politics back then in which rhetorical command was still highly valued, something more than today's soundbites or cable news sniping. Solarz, like the Kennedy brothers or Daniel Patrick Moynihan or Eban, the ultimate master, spoke in perfectly formed paragraphs, always seeking the right balance of dignity and substance, humor and sharp points where needed.

His intensity could be off-putting. Truth be told, he was not -- despite his nine electoral victories -- a natural politician. He alienated enemies and, sometimes, friends. In Washington, an old maxim is that you need both a great inside game and a great outside game. He ruffled enough feathers with his lack of attention to the inside game that when he hit turbulence toward the end of his time in Congress, potential allies stepped away from him. Opponents in Albany carved up his district in a way that forced him to choose between running against his friends and running in a district with which he had precious little connection. He chose the unfamiliar district, was a political fish out of water, and lost in the Democratic primary in 1992. It might have been a moment of opportunity. He was only 52. Two months later, a Democrat would be elected president and perhaps he could begin his long foretold ascent to the job he was best suited for, the one in the big office in Foggy Bottom.

His name came up to be ambassador to India, a post he would have filled exceptionally well. But an old enemy from the State Department raised the issue of a questionable contact he had made in Hong Kong and once again, potential allies retreated into the shadows and did not point out that the assertions made about him were absurd reasons to block the career of a man who had devoted his life to exceptional public service. It was an episode of gutless Washington at its worst and the American people were the ultimate losers.

Solarz went on to a distinguished post-congressional career, continuing to immerse himself in foreign policy, to lead the search for lasting solutions to the most complex international problems and to provide warm, wise advice to his friends and love to his dear family.

And then he got sick. And then he died. And now the memories come flooding back and it is clear that we are sorely in need of everything he was -- a dedicated student of foreign policy, a believer in the old school doctrine that national interests always trumped partisanship, a man who placed principle before reflexive loyalty and even self-interest, a guy with a sense of humor and a good heart … a mensch-statesman.

When he lost in 1992, the New York Times ran an article about the reactions to his loss. Solarz himself was quoted as saying that one of his few regrets was leaving office before Saddam Hussein did. Indiana Representative Lee Hamilton, another of the very best Congress has produced in the past several decades, is reported to have sent Steve a note saying: "Few events of the last several months have saddened me more than the realization that you may be leaving."

I can't help but feel the same way right now. But I was cheered by one of the valedictory lines Steve himself offered -- because of its characteristic humor and the way it evokes Steve as well as by its message. "I take comfort in Abba Eban's observation," he said, "That politics is the only profession where there's life after death." That is, of course, especially true of men whose public contributions were of genuinely historic magnitude and whose private kindnesses have touched thousands.

In the story of the dilemma of Buridan's Ass, the poor tormented beast, placed between two equidistant and equally appetizing haystacks, starves to death. In a twist on this ancient paradox, American voters, placed between two equally unappetizing political alternatives, have over the past few election cycles scurried from one to the other in a constant state of revulsion and perpetual buyer's remorse.

There is a paradox within this second paradox. It is a play on the old observation of my former boss Henry Kissinger that the reason academic infighting is so fierce is because the stakes are so low: The reason political infighting is so fierce now is because the difference between the opposing haystacks, er, parties is so small.

Think about it: Bill Clinton's big twist that made "new Democrats" different from the old version was that he tacked right, embracing many of the free-market, anti-crime, stronger defense policies of Reagan-Bush Republicans. It is hard to remember but George W. Bush, all those many years ago, ran saying he had a track record of working across the aisle and the main contrast he offered from Clinton was less about policy than that he would restore the honor of the office. Oh sure, the rhetoric is shaped and twisted to appeal to the base in each party, but the mainstream policies of both parties shared many similarities. And then came Barack Obama and the promise of change. From their approach to dealing with the economic crisis to most foreign policy decisions (including, I would argue, Iraq, where Bush would probably be doing much of what Obama is), the new administration has turned out to be much more like the old than many might have expected. Indeed, many in the world hoping for a big change have been shocked to discover, once again, that for the most part U.S. presidents act alike.

There are subtle differences, of course. For example, in recent years, a branch of the Democratic Party has been anti-trade. Of course, so has a branch of the Republican Party. (Far left and far right meet on the far side…) But in a twist appropriate to the preceding assertions, despite the fact that unions -- key parts of the Democratic base -- oppose free trade deals, Obama's rhetoric and behavior in India is an indication that he is stepping right in where Clinton left off -- becoming a good old-fashioned mainstream U.S. mercantilist. He now believes, as we used to say back in the Clinton administration, exports equal jobs. Since jobs are the metric by which voters will determine his score and fate as president, he is becoming a trade promoter.

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I've been on a bit of an odyssey the past few weeks, traveling to Abu Dhabi, Dubai, London, Paris, Washington, New York, Cleveland, Columbus, Juno Beach, Florida, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and now Chicago. I've seen up close a country reinventing itself for the new global economy (not the United States, the UAE). I've seen governments tackling tough fiscal problems with real political courage (not the United States, the British and the French). I've seen protests in the streets of people outraged at having to cope with a new economic reality (not the United States, the French, but America's day is coming). I've seen a capital city obsessed with its own jobs lose touch with a country worried about theirs. (That would be the United States.)

I was in Cleveland when President Barack Obama spoke to a half empty arena (and where he was overshadowed by Ohio's number one narcissist, LeBron James, playing his first game in a Miami Heat uniform). I was in countless board rooms and conferences in which the amount of anger directed at the White House makes last night's election results look obvious and inevitable.

In fact, one of the few unifying factors through all the stops on this trip, regardless of local politics, was the level of disappointment in Obama. Sometimes it was laced with anger. Sometimes it was expressed with simple regret for hopes that people now worried had been misplaced. But almost everywhere it was stoked by a sense that the president at this point in time didn't get it.  

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