Tomorrow it will be six months since Barack Obama, son of a cowherd black father and a white woman hooked the world with curiosity, mystique, hope and expectation as the first African-American president. He was like a magic lantern.

There was not a soul untouched; not a dry eye as he took oath of office. Planet earth watched this phenomenon with awe and wonder.

For days to follow, we watched every move of the Obamas in the White House. The mojo is still there. The first family continues to pull crowds whether in Ghana or in Rome. People of colour particularly relate to the couple. The president still enjoys high ratings in America. But many now wonder if his wonderful words that sound so inspiring, so touching and so believable can really bring back the good times that Americans have lost recently. Will those halcyon days ever return?

As I drive around cities and towns in America, I see big signs 'For Sale,' 'For Lease,' and 'For Rent' posted on office buildings and shops. The housing market is still depressed and the jobless rate still dismal despite Obama’s $787 billion stimulus plan. The economy is not recovering and people are downsizing their lifestyles rapidly. Shoppers at high end stores are missing but fast food joints and fancy restaurants appear thriving. I guess Americans love to eat and are not deterred by a recession. Many are overweight and unhealthy.

A first person account of a one-on-one with President Obama recently was a downer. 'He’s so robotic,' commented a CEO of a huge corporation in a private conversation with a friend. The CEO who sat across from Obama at the Oval Office to discuss health care for ordinary Americans came away a disappointed man. Considering that health care tops Obama’s ‘things to fix’ list, the CEO had carried a bagful of fresh ideas expecting the president to be all ears, bright eyes and bushy tailed. Instead “he had a glazed look” said the CEO. “He seemed somewhere far away as I spoke. I failed to connect with the president.”

It’s the media that makes Obama’s eyes shine, he added as an afterthought. 'He’s so impressive on the flat screen! He’s a great impresario!'

There’s a twitter of voices claiming that the American president cannot cope without a teleprompter. 'Take the machine away and you’ll find Obama stutter, falter and fumble.' In other words, his life support is the teleprompter! Whatever profundity he utters is pasted in front of him. The man cannot go wrong.

Foreign Policy recently showcased unsexy data about the ten 'failed states' in the world. Pakistan is number ten. 'The financial crisis was a near-death experience for insurgency-plagued Pakistan, which remains on IMF life support,' it said.

The Obama administration does not know which state needs to be bailed out immediately as all the ten are in dire shape. This is one question that will matter most this year of living dangerously, says the report. 'Which countries might blow up next? Are there pockets of success within states of failure? And who (or what) is to blame when things go bad — corrupt leaders, dysfunctional societies, bad neighbours, a global recession, unfortunate history, or simply geography itself?'

As one who has been following the politics of Pakistani military dictators and civilian rulers over the past 30 years, I can safely declare that Pakistan has not gone forward because of its corrupt leaders. Hardcore terrorists found this region an ideal spawning ground and are today challenging the state’s sovereignty itself! Obama’s blunt speak during his 24-hour visit to Ghana carries shades of truth for any Third World country like Pakistan.

'Development depends upon good governance.That is the ingredient which has been missing in far too many places… No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves, or if police can be bought off by drug traffickers. No business wants to invest in a place where the government skims 20 per cent off the top. No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery.'

He said that was not democracy; that was tyranny, even if occasionally you sprinkle an election here and there. Obama needs to pass on this message to our rulers if he really means what he says by 'not building strong personalities but building strong institutions.' If you were to ask our CEO friend who went to the White House for an exclusive with Obama and came away calling the president a 'robot' then there’s reason to believe that Obama doesn’t mean what he says most of the time. So to hatch hopes of a bailout or a stimulus plan for Pakistan is maybe just a midsummer’s night dream.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gets ready to go to India. Hillary has been doing rather poorly lately. Health wise, I mean. She had to opt out of Obama’s foreign tours to various continents because she had to nurse a broken elbow. The TV cynics at Fox News are spreading all kinds of malicious rumours about a fallout between the president and Mrs Clinton. 'The elbow that kept her from going with Obama to Moscow is just the latest in a set of circumstances and dynamics that have caused some to observe that the Secretary hasn't yet fully come to dominate her foreign policy turf,” writes the Foreign Policy. But aides to Clinton claim that she’s ready to step into the heat.
 
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