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Added: Wednesday, 4 November, 2009, 17:22 GMT 17:22 UK

Cautious pragmatist? I don't think so. It's just progressive politics hitting reality. Judge him from the people around him. As he asked us to do. Socialists and even Marxists abound. Along with the usual power-hungry. I'd call him a progressive opportunist. What you call cautious is merely Obama a) not coming to terms with stuff he knows little about like foreign policy and b) not having strong enough principles to do anything without reading both the polls and the political winds.

Peter Mifsud, Toronto

Added: Wednesday, 4 November, 2009, 16:54 GMT 16:54 UK

Impeachment?!

Crowd was fascinated, and desperately wanted to "marry" him. Now he is a husband to a disappointed All.

Ironically, intelligent people also have failed to discern Eloquence from Wisdom.

Svet;lana

Added: Wednesday, 4 November, 2009, 16:50 GMT 16:50 UK

Matt is brilliant as usual. I expected more passion from Obama. I wanted more commitment. He has compromised too easily, e.g on public option in healthcare. His abject surrender to Netanyahu turned me off, hopefully temporarily. I wish him luck, though, running a country so beholden to certain lobbies. The House vote 388-34 against the Goldstone Report exemplifies trhe problems he faces as an idealist, but compromise isn't working either.

Courcey, Barbados

Added: Wednesday, 4 November, 2009, 16:42 GMT 16:42 UK

It isn't too surprising that the gloss has come off the Obama presidency. With all the grand words on the campaign trail he made himself sound very reminiscent of Jimmy Carter, and now in the Oval Office the comparisons become all the more evident. In similar times of recession, inflation, energy crisis, muddled US foreign and domestic policy, it may well turn out to be that Obama, like Carter, is a far better man than he is president.

Mike Davis, London

Added: Wednesday, 4 November, 2009, 16:32 GMT 16:32 UK

Not sure about this one, Matt. In fact, for me it's rather the other way around: the poetry is still there - it's in the man - but he realised that people would soon tire of the lofty words and so made a shrewd decision (in my view) to "go practical". He was also smart enough to realise that his convictions - far more liberal than those of most Americans, and a long way ahead of most members of Congress - would never fly in America's political system. Rather, they could bring him down.

Angus, Strasbourg

Added: Wednesday, 4 November, 2009, 16:28 GMT 16:28 UK

It is fascinating and rare to read a balanced and honest review devoid of alarmist and rhetoric in our day and age. I cringed as I read further down waiting for the bias hammer to drop. It never did. You have a new reader. Enjoyable and thoughtful, thanks!

Dave, Fredericton, New Brunswick

Added: Wednesday, 4 November, 2009, 16:19 GMT 16:19 UK

Where is the circus? I mean, is this what we are expecting of this president just 1 yr. in? To perform circus tricks? Our country is built on a harsh history, how do we expect one man to go into office and change it all? No I do not agree with the war - among other things that plague this country, but I do not expect this man to be the savior of all the ills this country is dealing with. It is so frustrating to read about his shortcomings, when the man has not even fulfilled 2 yrs! Please Mr.Fre

Cer Prize, Brookyln

Added: Wednesday, 4 November, 2009, 13:50 GMT 13:50 UK

A very interesting analysis of what is and what has been before. I doubt many American Journalists have thought in this manner.

It does cast a very different light onto what has been going on in American Presidential politics, as far as whose personalities are and are not in the forefront and producing activities and suppressions.

Charles Thomas, Trenton, NJ, USA

Added: Wednesday, 4 November, 2009, 13:15 GMT 13:15 UK

Matt Frei:

Thanks for bringing this excellent item to live regarding poetry and the President of the United States (and) his issues in office...

=Dennis Junior=

[dennisjunior1]

Added: Wednesday, 4 November, 2009, 13:12 GMT 13:12 UK

You have a mistaken sense of someone taking their time. They rammed the stimulus/bailout bill down our throat in a matter of days and tried to pull the same thing with the healthcare. They don't even bother to read the bills, and I will bet neither does Obama. If you like him so much you can have him

Darby, USA

Added: Tuesday, 3 November, 2009, 07:07 GMT 07:07 UK

Brilliantly written.

Adel, Ottawa

Added: Sunday, 1 November, 2009, 24:55 GMT 00:55 UK

This is an interesting background piece. I would have liked more detail on Karadzic. How DID a psychiatrist, become a psycho?

James McGuire, Dedham, MA

Added: Sunday, 1 November, 2009, 24:11 GMT 00:11 UK

Excellent article. Evidently, that the USA were largely absent is accepted [by both: we don't care / they are too stupid, etc] but ultimately, it was Europe's - and Russia's - problem. Theirs - mainly Europe - is a criminal absence.

Oreste Drapaca, New York / Bucharest / Rome

Added: Saturday, 31 October, 2009, 10:31 GMT 10:31 UK

I would suggest to this great man and for many others to look for translation of Ivo Andric's book 'Travnicka Hronika'. There is a chance that some things will be more understandable for them at least about Bosnia and Herzegoovina.

Thanks.
Petar

Petar Petrovic, Banja Luka

Added: Friday, 30 October, 2009, 23:53 GMT 23:53 UK

i remember it exactly as you have written it, Mr Frei -- and i concur 100%. Only other little detail is that it is plausible that someone on the US side did in some official capacity offer Karadzic some kind of "immunity from prosecution." That would not surprise me one bit. From beginning to end, there has been a great many missteps -- and really, as you say, it is tricky indeed deciding which way to go. if any. Thank you, to you and your colleagues, for all the hard work.

Maria Ashot, Berkeley, United States