President Barack Obama will deliver a long-awaited speech on relations between the United States and the Muslim world in Egypt on 4 June 2009.  From the outset, the venue has been subject to speculation and debate. Muslim pro-democracy activists were hoping that Obama would deliver his talk in Jakarta instead of Cairo, partly in support of recent gains for democracy in the world's largest Muslim nation but also as a rebuke to authoritarian regimes which would (it was felt) register a public-relations victory by hosting the new American president. Now that the site of the speech has been decided, there are three things that Obama must do in order to persuade a deeply sceptical Muslim audience. Nader Hashemi is an assistant professor of Middle East and Islamic Politics at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. He is the author of Islam, Secularism and Liberal Democracy: Toward a Democratic Theory for Muslim Societies (Oxford University Press, 2009)

First, Obama must during his trip to Egypt hold a townhall-style meeting with everyday Egyptian citizens. Ideally, this meeting should take place not at the American University of Cairo (an elite institution where the rich and famous send their kids) but at Cairo University or perhaps at a local mosque, where attendees are more representative of the Egyptian mainstream. Critically, guarantees must be given that the exchange will be open and uncensored and that those who might ask difficult questions will not be persecuted by the security forces when cameras are turned off. 

The symbolic value of such an event cannot be overstated. The sight of an American president, in open and uncensored dialogue with ordinary Muslims, will go a long way towards demonstrating respect for the Islamic world.  A major grievance that Muslims have is that senior US officials meet only with the ruling elites, and rarely with representatives of more popular forces.  If President Obama is genuinely interested in bridging the chasm between the US and Muslim societies then he must meet and speak directly with the Muslim mainstream, not solely with the dictators who rule over them.

Second, Obama must in his speech address the central identity issue in the Arab-Islamic world today: the question of Palestine. No topic has generated more resentment and more separated the United States from Muslims over the past sixty years than this issue. It is vital that Obama acknowledge in unambiguous terms that the Palestinian people have the same human and national rights as Israelis, including the right to live in peace and security.

Muslims well remember Obama's statement in the Israeli town of Sderot in July 2008: that is, if his daughters were subject to daily rocket-fire he would do everything in his power to stop it. This expression of sympathy for Israeli policy on Gaza begged a question - if the president's daughters were living permanently as refugees in one of the most densely populated areas of the globe, and subject to an ongoing siege, would Obama also do everything in his power to alleviate their suffering?

In this light, the prospects of Obama's initiative to reach out to the Muslim world depends on his ability to speak in moral terms about the plight of the Palestinians and to clarify his plans to bring this conflict to a just conclusion. Anything less will be a massive setback.

Words and deeds

Third, Obama must be prepared to offend - albeit indirectly - his Egyptian hosts. There is a pungency in the leader of the "free world" delivering a major speech to Muslims in one of the least free parts of the world. Hosni Mubarak is one of the most despised as well as one of the longest-standing dictators in the Arab world - a status owed to a mix of his close alliance with the United States, his security forces' internal repression and his collusion with Israel in maintaining the siege of Gaza.

The contradictions between Barack Obama's many speeches that are rooted in the ideals of freedom and democracy, and the reality of US policy in the region, were best expressed by Egyptian author Alaa Al Aswany when he observed: "Our admiration for Mr. Obama is grounded in what he represents: fairness. He is the product of a just, democratic system that respects equal opportunity for education and work. This system allowed a black man, after centuries of racial discrimination, to become president. This fairness is precisely what we are missing in Egypt" (see "Why the Muslim World Can't Hear Obama", New York Times, 7 February 2009).

In his speech Obama cannot avoid the question of democracy and human rights, but he must also address the linkage between US policy and the persistence of authoritarian regimes. If he speaks honestly on this topic, his words will resonate with Muslims and face up to another core grievance that alienates the Islamic world from the west.

In this context it is imperative that Obama avoid another "Condoleezza Rice moment." This refers to a widely reported speech made in Cairo in June 2005 by the then US secretary of state which called for free elections and a rollback of authoritarianism. She criticised previous US policy of supporting "stability at the price of liberty", and strongly hinted that this was about to change. It never did.

What Arabs and Muslims are looking for is a genuine, not a cosmetic change in US policy: one that will tie US economic and diplomatic support to meaningful steps in democratisation. They have heard nice sounding speeches before; what they will be looking for on 4 June 2009 is serious words followed by real deeds.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated on 4 March 1933. "This nation asks for action", he said in his inaugural address, and he answered the call. By the time Congress adjourned on 15 June, he had sent it fifteen messages and persuaded it to pass fifteen major pieces of legislation. And they were major. They included the Banking Act and the Glass-Steagall Act, separating commercial and investment banking; the Agricultural Adjustment Act to establish a policy to save American farming; and the National Industrial Recovery Act to do the same for industry. He set up the Tennessee Valley Authority and sponsored an international financial conference, passed numerous reforms of the mortgage industry and took the United States off the gold standard.Godfrey Hodgson was director of the Reuters' Foundation Programme at Oxford University, and before that the Observer's correspondent in the United States and foreign editor of the Independent.

Godfrey Hodgson's most recent book is The Myth of American Exceptionalism (Yale University Press, 2009)

His earlier books include The World Turned Right Side Up: a history of the conservative ascendancy in America (Houghton Mifflin, 1996); The Gentleman from New York: Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (Houghton Mifflin, 2000); More Equal Than Others: America from Nixon to the New Century (Princeton University Press, 2006), A Great and Godly Adventure: The Pilgrims and the Myth of the First Thanksgiving (PublicAffairs, 2007)

Among Godfrey Hodgson's openDemocracy articles:

"Barack Obama: at the crossroads of victory" (11 June 2008): "America's foreign-policy election" (28 August 2008)

"America's economy election" (17 October 2008)

"Yes he can!" (6 November 2008)

"Change?" (2 December 2008)

"An end and a beginning" (5 January 2009)

"Barack Obama: don't waste the crisis" (6 February 2009)

"Barack Obama's reality gap" (27 February 2009)

"Barack Obama: end of the beginning" (30 March 2009)

"After the G20: America, Obama, the world" (6 April 2009)

These were the famous "hundred days", in the course of which Roosevelt saved American capitalism and - some would say - saved American democracy as well. The period set a standard by which the wisdom and effectiveness of future presidents was to be judged.

In 1961, media judgment of the achievements of John F Kennedy's first hundred days in office was harsh (and the president was no less self-critical). He had been far from inactive. But his successes were seen as having been cancelled out by the catastrophic failure of his attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro's regime in Cuba. Kennedy, asked how he liked being president, answered wryly that he had liked it better before the Bay of Pigs.

Even JFK's humiliation could not compare with the original hundred days, which measured the interval between Napoleon's escape from exile on the island of Elba and his decisive defeat at Waterloo.

Barack Obama approaches the end of his first hundred days in office with a record that lies somewhere between those of Roosevelt and Napoleon. He has been as active as FDR; avoided any disasters; and has certainly not met his Waterloo. This is, then, a good moment to assess how he has performed so far in terms of what he wants to achieve, and what his supporters expect from him.

In the world's eye

For President Obama to do better than his predecessor internationally was always going to be easy. For George W Bush was disliked by huge numbers of the world's people, and an even larger proportion of their leaders; indeed, the degree of loathing exceeded that visited on almost any other American president.

But Obama has not just basked in the widespread relief at his arrival in the White House; he has also acted well. He said on his first day in office that he would close the Guantánamo prison camp, and is working on it; within a few more days he had struck the note the world wanted to hear on Iraq, on torture and on climate change.

His meetings in Europe and Turkey for a series of summits on 2-7 April 2009, and in Trinidad & Tobago for the Summit of the Americas on 17-19 April, were an almost unqualified success. People everywhere liked and trusted him. (The one partial exception was his urging the European Union to accept Turkey as a member: the reaction in Washington if France's Nicolas Sarkozy were to urge the United States to accept Mexico as the fifty-first state!)

Only gradually has it emerged that while Obama may understand the world's anger at the Bush administration's hubris and rudeness, his own foreign policy in many ways is set to continue the established themes of American policy. He might be ready to draw down US forces in Iraq; but only to send more to Afghanistan. He might have appointed excellent regional special envoys - Richard Holbrooke, George Mitchell, Dennis Ross; but with no expectation of dramatic progress in their areas of responsibility.

Obama's public demeanour may be hugely welcomed across the world. But the US under his leadership will still pursue many of America's great-power goals. The fist might open into a handshake, but his remains a project for a new - if less aggressive - American century.

In the domestic arena

At home, as the hundred days end on 29 April 2009, President Obama's record is even more ambiguous. No one doubts his determination to drag the American economy out of the quagmire. Many doubt whether his administration (studded as it is on the financial side with those most associated with the policies that caused the trouble in the first place) knows how to do the job.

Equally, no one doubts the sincerity of his reform agenda. But many doubt whether, given the slowdown of the economy and the ballooning of the budget deficit, he will be able to advance his social and environmental goals: introducing universal healthcare insurance, investing on a significant scale in public education, and reducing America's dependence on imported energy.

Only a fool, said JP Morgan, would "go a bear" on the United States. But a very large number of fools did "go a bull" on a scale that has come close to ruining the world's strongest single economy (and thus, in a globalised economy, to ruining everyone else's). 

Indeed, what President Obama's first hundred days illustrate is the limited ability of the American presidency to respond to the country's real needs. The glamour, the excitement and the appeal of the US presidency were graphically on view at the inauguration on 20 January - but almost immediately the limitations of presidential power were apparent.

This is highlighted by the fact that key offices in the treasury remained unfilled for weeks at the height of the worst financial crisis since the early 1930s - because a constitutional provision requires high offices to be subject to the advice and consent of the Senate, ensuring a slow process at the best of times.

It is also clear in the president's difficult relationship with Congress. The legislative process in the House of Representatives (which controls money bills) is encrusted with the new system of "earmarks" and other special interests that tread close to the borders of corruption. In the Senate, an administration's need (thanks to comparatively new conventions) to in effect win three-fifths of the votes to pass legislation makes the process lengthier. In both chambers, the committee system - cumbersome and exposed to special-interest lobbying - is now closer than ever to paralysis. 

The problems are compounded by the fact that among the many high-minded people in Congress, there are few towering figures. In part, this is because the public sees the political system as dominated by presidential will and presidential action - an illusion that the media (and especially) television has reinforced. The president is portrayed as dynamic, the Congress and other institutional rivals as bumbling. The use of phrases such as "commander-in-chief" and "leader of the free world" for the president, contrasted with the supposed parochialism and self-interest of senators and congressmen, further exaggerates the contrast.  

In the balance

Already, as the hundred days come to an end, older political realities have reasserted itself. The forces of inertia look heavier than ever. The Obama administration acted with decisiveness and energy to recapitalise the banks. The bankers simply took this as an opportunity to strengthen their balance-sheets and keep paying themselves bonuses. The country's manufacturing industry is in such a poor shape that Fiat is seen as a potential saviour for both Chrysler and General Motors. The faint signs of revival on Wall Street contrast with the bleak outlook on Main Street, where real-estate values continue to fall and unemployment continues to rise (see "Barack Obama: end of the beginning", 30 March 2009). 

Also in openDemocracy on Barack Obama's presidency:

Simon Maxwell, "Global development: Barack Obama's agenda" (20 January 2009)

Pervez Hoodbhoy, "Obama's triple test" (21 January 2009)

Fred Halliday, "The greater middle east: Obama's six problems" (21 January 2009)

openDemocracy, "Barack Obama: hope, fear... advice" (19-23 January 2009) - reflections from thirty-seven of our worldwide authors

Simon Critchley, "Barack Obama and the American void" (22 January 2009)

Ruth Rosen, "American women's stimulus: voice, agency, change" (18 February 2009)

Jim Gabour, "The redemption game" (20 February 2009)

Plus - regular comment on openUSA

When I travelled across the United States at the time of the inauguration to discuss The Myth of American Exceptionalism [Yale University Press, 2009] - a book that is very critical of aspects of American democracy - I was constantly asked how I could say such things when America had just elected Barack Obama. My reply was two-fold: that the double task of reforming the inequalities and the inefficiencies of American society while rescuing an imploded financial system seemed almost beyond the strength even of the strongest president; and that in any case the presidency did not now have the powers or the influence it would need to complete this task.

The presidency, after all, was far from all-powerful even in Franklin Roosevelt's day. FDR complained that getting the Washington government, and especially the US navy, to do what the president wanted was like punching a pillow. In All Things to All Men: The False Promise of the Modern America Presidency (1980), I showed in detail how Roosevelt had responded to challenges as frightening as those confronting Barack Obama by using a range of instruments - the Congress, the Democratic Party, the permanent government, and the press and radio - to lessen his isolation within the constitutional system. "By the end of his twelve years in the White House", I wrote, "the temporary shift in the balance of power between the President and the Congress resulting from then dramatic initiatives of the Hundred Days had become the way Washington worked."

"For all that", I went on, "he had done nothing to change the rules of the game. He had simply shown how it was possible to win most of the time. In so doing, he had greatly heightened expectations - both in Congress and in the nation - of what his successors would be able to accomplish". FDR's presidential domination is not the way Washington works today.

The fact that Roosevelt was president during a period of unprecedented crisis at home and abroad may have strengthened his authority as well as testing it, yet this still did not permit a permanent change. The six decades since Roosevelt's death have seen all of his successors, several of them men of great force of character and formidable political skill, fail to make the system work as well as he did.

Harry Truman, working with the presidency as Roosevelt had left it to him, did as well as anyone. Dwight D Eisenhower did better, as historians now recognise, than his liberal critics thought at the time. Both John Kennedy and Lyndon B Johnson, activist Democratic presidents, complained vociferously of their powerlessness and railed against the constraints of the system.

After them, the president's situation became even harder. Richard M Nixon was driven from office amid scandal. Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter were derided, then defeated. Ronald Reagan came to the White House announcing that government was the problem, not the solution, a belief that did nothing to make government more effective. George HW Bush was an excellent foreign-policy president, but unsuccessful at home and defeated in a re-election bid. Bill Clinton only narrowly avoided ejection and George W Bush became a model of unpopularity.

If the American president has (as the textbooks say) to perform the roles both of an elected monarch and a consecrated prime minister, the record of the past two generations suggests that the monarchical attributes of the office have fared better than its administrative and political fortunes.

Barack Obama has in his first three months confirmed his possession of formidable political skills. The question must be whether they will be enough to help him transcend the very real constraints and weaknesses of what is constantly, but inaccurately, described as the most powerful office in the world.

Barack Obama announced a comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan on 27 March 2009. This recognises that a military victory is unattainable. It adopts a regional approach, focusing more intensively on Pakistan, and opens the way to negotiate with some sectors of the insurgency. More emphasis is laid on development and creating jobs in agriculture. The United States president also acknowledges the need for a strategy towards the eventual withdrawal of military forces.

President Barack Obama joked in his press conference on 24 March 2009 that the euphoria of his inauguration two months earlier had lasted only a single day. The hope he had the audacity to proclaim is not yet dead. But - even as he prepares to leave for a trip to Europe that will encompass the G20 summit in London (2 April), the Nato anniversary summit jointly hosted by France and Germany (3-4 April), and visits to the Czech Republic (4-5 April) and Turkey (6-7 April) - the future prospects of his presidency are already in the balance.

Among openDemocracy's articles on the economic crisis:

Willem Buiter, "The end of American capitalism (as we knew it)" (17 September 2008)

Ann Pettifor, "The week that changed everything" (22 September 2008)

Will Hutton, "Wanted: a fairer capitalism" (6 October 2008)

Avinash Persaud, "Europe's financial crisis: the integration lesson" (7 October 2008)

Paul Rogers, "A world in flux: crisis to agency" (16 October 2008)

Andre Wilkens, "The global financial crisis: opportunities for change" (10 November 2008)

Simon Maxwell & Dirk Messner, "A new global order: Bretton Woods II...and San Francisco II" (11 November 2008)

Larry Elliott, "From G8 to G20: the end of exclusion" (16 November 2008)

Krzysztof Rybinski, "A new world order" (4 December 2008)

Paul Rogers, "A world in revolt" (12 February 2009)

Katinka Barysch, "The real G20 agenda: from technics to politics" (16 March 2009)

Krzysztof Rybinski, "There is no zombie free lunch" (18 March 2009)

Sue Branford, "The G20's missing voice" (26 March 2009)

Will Hutton, "A G20 deal: power bends to protest" (29 March 2009)

With great courage, Obama has insisted that he would stick to his promises to tackle long-term failings in American society, even as he struggled to heal the economic crisis. He continues to press for these reforms - in climate-change policy, healthcare, public education, dependence on imported oil, and growing inequality - even as he grapples with the blocking of credit and the terrible unemployment that is one of its consequences.

The week of 23-29 March saw a new twist: the emergence of a deadly dilemma that the president has to resolve. He has learned that he cannot unblock credit without going a long way to appease the interests of the bankers who caused the problem in the first place. At the same time he has become aware of the rising fury among everyday Americans triggered by the huge bonuses paid to executives at AIG, the giant insurance company that in 2008 posted the biggest losses in American business history.

Everyone agrees that the knot that has to be cut is the astronomical quantity of "toxic assets" poisoning the balance sheets of American banks - as well as those European banks (the Royal Bank of Scotland, Paribas, Deutsche Bank and UBS among them), which thought it was clever to copycat every Wall Street fashion.

The plan unveiled by Obama's treasury secretary Timothy Geithner on 23 March hands to the banks the juiciest of "sweetheart" deals to persuade them to buy up what Geithner calls "legacy assets" (the financial crisis has given free rein to American public life's culture of euphemism).

The president's vice

Geithner's plan distinguishes between securities based on truly valueless loans and those whose value has simply been depressed by the economic downturn. It proposes that the treasury and "private investors" - which in practice can only mean the investment banks, commercial banks and hedge-funds which created and invested in the toxic assets in the first place - will buy equal amounts of the unsaleable assets. But private investors will only be able to do so thanks to a far larger injection of money to be lent by a government agency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

Altogether it is calculated that private investors will contribute 6% or 7% of the money to clean up the banks' balance-sheets. The taxpayer, in the shape of the treasury and FDIC, will put up more than 90%. That, in the good old days before Wall Street collapsed, used to be called "leverage" of perhaps thirteen-to-one. With government standing behind them to that extent, why wouldn't the banks buy trash at prices kited with government money?

Timothy Geithner makes much of the importance of keeping the rescue in the private sector, which it patently is not. He also speaks warmly of the professional skills that will be devoted to the task by the very speculators who brought the economy to its knees.

The liberal economic intelligentsia don't like it. Jeffrey Sachs calls it a "massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers to bank shareholders". In a deadly back-of-the-envelope calculation he estimates that the plan will hand $276 billion - even today a not inconsiderable sum - directly from the taxpayers to bank shareholders (see Jeffrey Sachs, "Will Geithner and Summers Succeed in Raiding the FDIC and Fed?", VoxEU, 25 March 2009).

The Nobel laureate and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman dismisses the plan as not much more than a revival of the George W Bush administration's plan to absorb the banks' toxic assets: just more "cash for trash". The economist and former labour secretary, Robert Reich, and the Columbia University scholar Joseph Stiglitz are equally acerbic (see Edward Luce, "America's liberals lay into Obama", Financial Times, 27 March 2009).

The co-editor of The American Prospect and respected commentator, Robert Kuttner, says the Obama administration has chosen "the most expensive and risky way of trying to recapitalise the banks, and the least likely to succeed". Kuttner also identifies a point that is likely to be the target of much angry criticism, namely that the president has turned to "the same Wall Street crew" who failed to handle the situation under the Bush administration, and indeed who were largely responsible for what went wrong in the first place: Robert Rubin, Laurence Summers, and their protégés (see Robert Kuttner, "Geithner's last stand", Huffington Post, 22 March 2009).

If anyone had any doubts about who would benefit from the Geithner "public-private partnership", they had only to watch how the stock market responded. Bank shares overall rose by 10% in the aftermath, but the biggest banks that have survived did better than that. Citigroup was up 19%; Bank of America shot up 26% in heavy trading; Wells Fargo's shares rose by 24%, and J.P. Morgan Chase's by 25%.  A day later, however, the wave of market enthusiasm had subsided.

The truth is that Obama now finds himself in a new vice. He feels he needs people from Wall Street to solve the street's problems. That is one reason why it has taken him so long to fill the key jobs at the treasury under Geithner. At the same time he clearly underestimated the rage Main Street citizens feel both at the AIG bonuses and the broader proposition: that while they face losing their jobs and their homes because of the folly and greed of the financial sector, the only people who walk away laughing are the folks who caused the disaster in the first place.

No wonder that questions are being asked about the ubiquitous presence of present and former executives of Goldman Sachs in the Obama administration, just as in the ranks of its precedessor.

A time to choose

Barack Obama showed in his long campaign for the presidency that he is a very skilled politician. He is also by temperament cautious, even conservative. His instinct is to "reach across the aisle" in order to cure what he sees as the excessive partisanship of the years since the "Reagan revolution". He is too a patient man. But now he understands that he has got to move fast if he is to save the hopes of his presidency (see "Barack Obama: don't waste the crisis", 6 February 2009).

In this the president is both beneficiary and victim of larger historic forces. The same event that cleared his way to the White House, the financial crisis symbolised by the fall of Lehman Brothers on 15 September 15 2008, may have made it impossible to govern; or at the least, may mean that he will have to sacrifice at least some of his hopes of long-term reform (see "The week that democracy won", 29 September 2008).

In the short term, in order to heal the financial crisis it looks as though he has had to put the fate of his administration in the hands of the men from Wall Street.

Amid the stock-market panic of 1907, the financier JP Morgan was surprised that President Theodore Roosevelt didn't "send your man to fix things up with my man".  It couldn't be done like that then, and it can't be done now. But the young president and his even younger treasury secretary have nonetheless been taught a hard lesson in political economy.

To govern is to choose, as Aneurin Bevan - the Welsh architect of Britain's post-1945 national healthcare system - said. It is now clear that inviting the poachers to act as gamekeepers was a mistake. Many Americans long accepted the conservative contention that government was the problem, not the solution. That phase of history seems to have ended, and a progressive president finds himself coping with a new wave of populism of a kind that seemed to have disappeared from America politics for generations. He means to govern, and he will have to choose.

It is not surprising that Barack Obama's election has dramatically transformed the way French citizens think of the United States. That story has been told many times before, if not about France than about other countries and their fascinations with the American president. Yet, in an unexpected mirror effect, it is France's vision of itself that is being altered by Obama's victory.  

During the past eight years, the French thought of their homeland as far superior to what they saw as a death penalty-loving bastion of reactionary forces; now, they celebrate the United States for its new-found maturity, an elevated politics that many fear is unattainable in France. The comfort of knowing that a Frenchman with George W Bush's politics would find himself dismissed as a dangerous extremist has given way to an often-voiced anxiety: Could a "French Obama" win a presidential election?

This is not just a rhetorical question; it has real significance in the French context. Obama's French enthusiasts inevitably distort his real profile and platform in their effort to frame his victory for their own purposes. The parts of Obama's story that his admirers invoke and the themes they emphasize provide a window into the glaring shortfalls of French society. Obama is a cipher for the Left's inability to sell its ideas; the rigid structure of political parties and stultifying hold of political elites; and the dreadful lack of minority figures in leadership positions.

A socialist icon

One group of Obama admirers can be found in the Socialist Party (PS). The country's leading left-wing party has not won a presidential election since 1988 and a legislative election since 1997. Asphyxiated in recent years by the hyperactivity of right-wing President Nicolas Sarkozy and unable to counter the spread of conservative ideas, the PS has been in survival mode for much of the past decade. 

Socialist leaders are now hoping to take advantage of Obama's victory to bolster their own cause and get back into France's political game. To regain power, the PS must learn how to make its platform look more appealing to lower and middle class voters. And what better way to do that than to insist the party's proposals are similar to those of the popular and emblematically progressive American president? Daniel Nichanian is a freelance writer and journalist. He blogs at Campaign Diaries.  

"Restoration of the power of the public sector, intervention in the markets, efforts to restrict free trade for the benefit of employment," marveled party spokesperson Benoît Hamon in an interview with the French newspaper La Croix back in March 2008. "Each of these actions is considered archaic in the European Union but Obama demonstrates that they are in fact suited to our times." 

Of course, such an assertion requires the cherry-picking of a few of Obama's proposals that have a progressive cast, portraying them as far more left-of-centre than they actually are. This grey distortion was glaringly evident over the past few weeks, as the PS repeatedly invoked Obama's relatively centrist recovery plan to argue that the current economic crisis demanded a leftist response.  

In touting the PS's counter-proposal to Sarkozy's stimulus, Hamon took pride in the fact that the Socialists' proposal is "in tune with that which Barack Obama is doing for his country;" he also defended his call for the state to take a seat on banks' board of directors by portraying Obama as a strong proponent of nationalization. Meanwhile, party head Martine Aubry called on Sarkozy to follow in Obama's footsteps. "When the issue of capping CEO salaries comes up, Obama is on the move," she said in a recent interview with Le Parisien. "I'm waiting for Sarkozy to do the same." 

Obama's actual policy statements might not be as leftist as Aubry and Hamon's characterizations, and his commitment to saving the capitalist system is probably closer to Sarkozy's vow to "re-found" it. But that doesn't stop PS officials from suggesting that the American rejection of conservative ideas heralds a left-ward shift in French politics.  

The grassroots hero

While Aubry and Hamon strive to depict Obama as a socialist in the hope of reviving France's left-wing discourse, others are more interested in drawing upon the narrative of Obama as an anti-establishment, grassroots candidate to denounce the rigidity of the French system.

France's political life is dominated by a monolithic ruling class - overwhelmingly white, sharing similar resumes, of the same age; most have gone through the same top school, the National School of Administration (ENA). Politicians hold on to power for decades, blocking the renewal of elites and preventing new generations from entering positions of responsibility.  

How could reformers concerned with such stagnation not look towards Obama? Whatever the American president's actual commitment to broadening the democratic process, he inspired millions of first-time voters, defeated better-established candidates and bypassed traditional structures to engage directly with the body public - all feats many worry would not be feasible in France. 

The dispute over which strand of reform to prioritize - policy or process - rocked the PS during its heated leadership fight last fall. One faction, led by Hamon, contended that the party should radicalize its economic platform; another camp, led by the party's 2007 presidential nominee Ségolène Royal, advocated for procedural changes like the expansion of the party's membership base and making primaries open to the public at large rather than only to dues-paying activists.  

Royal's narrow loss in the PS's leadership vote hardened her determination to portray herself as an opponent of the political establishment. Much of this is opportunistic, of course - Royal is a longtime politician who graduated from ENA and served in the governmental cabinet as early as 1992 - and she was mocked mercilessly recently for suggesting that Obama had copied her campaign. But there is indisputably shared parentage between Royal's objectives and some of Obama's rhetoric; she built her presidential campaign around participative and inclusive forums meant to draw voters in and allow them to shape her platform.  

Her proposals found their echo in a 137-page report released earlier this year by Terra Nova, a left-leaning think thank that sent a study group to the United States to observe the presidential election. In obvious awe of Obama, the group issued a series of recommendations aimed at revitalizing French democracy by loosening the organization of parties and improving political communication. For instance, the report called for the constitution of mass parties to replace France's relatively small political organizations, whose power is held by a core group of activists.  

"This would allow political leaders to emancipate themselves from the parties' structures," touted Pauline Peretz, a professor at the Université de Nantes and a member of the study group. "A more direct relationship can be built with party members and with the electorate," she added, alluding to a model of "participative democracy." 

Mass parties have pitfalls of their own, however. Critics worry that dramatically expanding the scope of parties would dilute their ideological substance and intellectual liveliness, risking their transformation into mere instruments of the ambitions of politicians. But toying with party structure is only one of many possible ways with which to reform the system. What no one disputes - and what Obama's victory makes all the clearer - is that citizens must be more directly involved in the political process.  

France's monochrome politics

This is the compromise institutionalized political parties have to make to ensure that they are representative of the country's diversity - whether in terms of gender, class or race. Obama's election offers a unique opportunity to highlight French politics's striking monochromatism.  

Asked whether France could conceivably elect a minority president, Patrice Schoendorff, who runs a pro-Obama organization in Lyon and who co-founded the website Diversité News, did not hesitate. "It's impossible! We are at least 30 years behind," he said. "We might not even have a minority with enough standing to jump in the field. We can't even imagine having a minority as big city mayor."  

This judgment might sound harsh, but one statistic is enough to substantiate Schoendorff's analysis: In the most recent elections, only two minority politicians were elected in the 555 parliamentary districts that make up mainland France. (There are 22 seats reserved for France's overseas territories.) 

The challenges minorities face extend well beyond the electoral sphere. Cavernous socio-economic inequality is combined with France's failure to adequately integrate millions of second and third-generation immigrants; the situation revealed its explosive potential during the 2005 riots in the banlieues, the predominantly lower-class suburbs that house a significant minority population. 

With Obama's victory, French activists believe they have been provided an opening to broach sensible subjects and empower minority groups in France. Alfa'Dev, a neighborhood association based in Argenteuil, a Paris suburb, was anxious to seize the opportunity and installed a giant screen in city hall on the day of Obama's Inauguration. 

The viewing party made for a powerful event. Back in 2005, Argenteuil was the stage of a tense confrontation between Sarkozy and the banlieusards. Sarkozy, who was then Interior Minister, has been reluctant to visits the banlieues since then, aggravating their divorce from mainstream French society and politics. Now, Argenteuil's youth have turned towards a foreign president for the inspiration they cannot find in the French one. 

Michel Sabaly, who runs Alfa'Dev, underlined Obama's appeal in the impoverished suburb. "We want to adapt America's 'yes we can' to say that if Obama could work to become who he is, we should be able to do the same in France," he said. "People from the banlieues who have similar stories can believe that work, perseverance, and seriousness are assets that can lead someone who started out with very little to someplace successful."  

What makes it particularly difficult to translate social empowerment into political change in France is that the condition of minorities is shaped by the country's colonial past and by recent migratory waves. Unlike African-Americans in the United States, French minorities are still often perceived as foreigners. According to Esther Benbassa, a professor at Sorbonne's Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, this limits the possibility of a mass movement like America's campaign for civil rights or of an organization working on behalf of an entire community. "Here, we are stuck in an individualist understanding of power," she said. "Those who come from immigrant families and want to reach influence are fighting for themselves." 

With advocacy groups weaker than they often are in the United States, it is no surprise that political parties have failed to step up. But with the election of Obama, the political class is being forced to recognize how far behind France finds itself. Obama's victory is generating enough pressure to force onto the table thorny issues like affirmation action or the need to overturn a ban on collecting ethnic and racial statistics.  

Neither of these two proposals enjoys the unanimous support of minority rights groups, but they should at least be debated. France's commitment to jacobin values has long prevented ethnicity from being acknowledged as a relevant category of public life and as a potential source of inequality, and the ban on ethnic statistics denies us even a basic knowledge of the socio-economic condition of minority groups.  

When imported into the French context, Obama might only be a symbol - what Benbassa deplores as a "gadget" politicians use to show their commitment to reform - but he is undoubtedly a useful one. He has got the reticent, recalcitrant French finally talking about their own problems.

Ahn "Joseph" Cao, a Republican who represents the state of Louisiana, is the first elected politician of Vietnamese origin in the United States's House of Representatives. He had declared on 12 February 2009 that he would cast the only Republican vote for Barack Obama's economic-stimulus package in the House; while Bobby Jindal, the Republican governor of Louisiana, and the first US governor of Indian origin, was chosen by the party to make the only nationally-televised rebuttal of Obama's proposal, after the new president outlines his plan to the first joint session of Congress of his tenure.   

Jim Gabour is an award-winning film producer, writer and director, whose work focuses primarily on music and the diversity of cultures. He lives in New Orleans, where he is artist-in-residence and professor of video technology at Loyola University. His website is here

Many of Jim Gabour's articles for openDemocracy are collected in an edition of the openDemocracy Quarterly

For details of Undercurrent: Life after Katrina, click here 

Obama and Jindal's speeches are scheduled for Mardi Gras Day, 24 February 2009. This virtually ensures that no one in Jindal's constituency will see either. 

No matter. This overt "product placement" is determined by the Republican Party's need to redeem itself in the eyes of the American people. The "grand old party" has already put on a new public face by hiring Michael Steele to be the chair of the Republican National Committee (a competent and experienced gentleman, and the first African-American to hold that post). Now they place governor Jindal - also quite intelligent, sincere and untainted by scandal - in direct opposition to President Obama.

Both Cao and Jindal have in recent months been described as the "future of the Republican Party" (see "Three regular guys", 8 January 2009). But Cao believes the future of Republicans may lie in not acting like Republicans. He knows his New Orleans district is among the poorest in America, totally lacks infrastructure since hurricane Katrina, and is in dire need of just the sort of restorative influx that will come with Obama's plan. 

He has been meeting face to face with many of his constituents on a regular basis, and had said re the stimulus package: "I am voting along with what my conscience dictates and the needs of the 2d Congressional District dictates". Cao's constituency is, unlike him, overwhelmingly African-American and Democratic. Yet he seemed determined to represent them - until the evening of 12 February 2009, when at the last minute he succumbed to partisan politics and reversed himself. Thus the Republicans were able to make their statement: none would bend to support the Democratic president.

Bobby Jindal, meanwhile, has spent a lot of time criticising the proposed economic measures at gatherings all over the south, while simultaneously using those speeches as campaign-contribution magnets for his next step into the national spotlight. This will be advanced greatly with his carnival-day speech.

A selection of Jim Gabour's articles in openDemocracy:

"This is personal" (23 April 2007)"

Lessons in the classics"
(6 August 2007)"

Native to America" (26 September 2007)"

The upper crust"
(8 November 2007)"

Windfall" (17 December 2007)"

Ruling Louisiana" (25 July 2008)"

Hardware madness: Katrina's three years"
(24 August 2008)"

Living with Gustav" (1 September 2008)"

Loot"
(8 October 2008)"

Nine-inch nails in the White House"
(31 October 2008)"

Living the American movie"
(5 November 2008)"

Three regular guys" (8 January 2009)

The Louisiana swamp

Politics in the United States can be less than forgiving. The stories of careers made and broken, leaders exalted and spurned, predate even the foundation of the republic. But the stories of survival and return are also legion; there are second and even third acts in American lives. This is exactly what the Republicans are banking on: redemption in the eyes of the voting public.  

So who gets redemption?

The first month of the new era has seen quite a few ups and downs, ins and outs in Barack Obama's proposed cabinet (see Godfrey Hodgson, "Barack Obama: don't waste the crisis", 6 February 2009). But to get a better idea of what is and is not forgiven in politics, the more overtly tawdry portions of recent history offer a guide.

The case of the semi-penitent Bill Clinton is classic. For even after dissembling over the embarrassing behaviour that consumed his last year in office (and royally infuriated a future secretary of state), he has remained a huge favourite of many American people. His charisma may have dimmed during his efforts in 2008 to help get his wife a better-paying federal job, but he retains the support even of individuals who are otherwise straight-laced. This is the man referred to positively by my own mother, who after only two years of George W Bush, called me to admit that she had also recently sinned: "I have been praying that God would somehow bring back the adulterer" (see "Frozen assets: letter from New Orleans", 5 June 2006).

The result: redeemed.

The case of Newt Gingrich, ex-speaker of the House and Bill Clinton's one-time great rival, is a prime example of unrepentant redemption. In over-the-top rhetoric reminiscent of Richard Nixon's logorrhea-inflicted vice-president Spiro Agnew, Gingrich assailed the president and led the battle for impeachment. After the political fortunes were reversed, he himself was revealed to have been conducting his own double life. He said "never mind", shut his mouth, hid in north Georgia for the better part of a decade - and in 2009 is back, supposedly (at least in his own mind) cleansed of sin. Gingrich, touting himself as "the leader of the Republican revolution that swept Congress in 1994", has even initiated his own website-newsletter, "winning the future". His honesty-and-logic-challenged motto "real change requires real change", oddly enough, runs in a banner on the site advertising his book Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less.

The result: limited redemption.

The case of Bob Livingston, another Republican who represents the state of Louisiana in the House of Representatives - a fellow Clinton-flayer, who was chosen to succeed Gingrich as House speaker (a post he did not take up) - also became known for his the excesses of his private life. He retired from the spotlight, except when daily re-entering every office on Capitol Hill as the highly-compensated lobbyist for the Livingston Group. An early client was Turkey, whose interests over "international and historical issues" (such as denying the genocide of Armenians in 1915 and after) he defended. Bob Livingston is growing much wealthier now than during his days in public service.

The result: redemption declined.

The trail of salvation now gets more twisted. The elected Louisiana replacement for Bob Livingston in 1999 was family-values super-straight-moral-arrow David Vitter, who went on in 1992 to run for the governorship of Louisiana. He survived reports of extra-marital relations then and rumours of the same when running for the Senate in 2004, before succumbing in 2007 when substantive proof was finally offered that Vitter was partaking in numerous liaisons. In Vitter's case the acts were illegal as well as morally questionable, as he was listed as a frequent patron of call-girls, prostitutes and escort-services on both the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.

The head of the escort-service used by Vitter in Washington DC subpoenaed him in late 2007, though his appearance was later cancelled. Sarah Jane Palfrey committed suicide in 2008, which brought Vitter's transgressions back into the public eye. The Senator refused to resign, but - following the Gingrich model - retreated from the media glare before re-emerging in early 2009 with a vengeance: aggressively pro-military, guns, and religious involvement in government, anti-women's choice, gay rights, and immigration-amnesty. He grandstanded at Hillary Clinton's confirmation hearings and was the sole vote against her, delaying the final verdict just to draw attention to himself.  

Stormy Daniels, a Louisiana-born star of pornographic films, announced on 13 February 2009 that she is seriously considering a run against Vitter. Despite all this, Vitter is supposedly still polling well with his constituents.

The result: redemption pending.

The Washington pit

A release from these relentless tales of sexual transgressions can be found in one quick incidence of forgiveness from violence. Dick Cheney, vice-president under George W Bush, clearly illustrated the effects of executive power on redemption. The hardline, tooth-grinding veteran shot a hunting partner in the face and body with a large-gauge shotgun, wounding the man severely (see Sidney Blumenthal, "The rules of the game", 17 February 2006). There were odd, never-explained circumstances involved, but before any serious investigation could be made Cheney was cleansed of his transgression... when the gent he shot took the blame.

The result: redeemed. And don't you forget it.

The relief from blame was not the case for the police officer who received Larry Craig's wanton overtures. The Republican representative from Idaho was arrested in a Minneapolis-St Paul airport men's room for "homosexual lewd conduct", taken to police headquarters and immediately pleaded guilty to a lesser plea of "disorderly conduct". He subsequently recanted, but did not retract his guilty plea, and was never forgiven by his constituency. Even his fellow Republicans asked him to step aside, but he stubbornly held on until his very last federal pay-cheque. His term officially ended in January 2009, eighteen months after his "sin". 

The result: unredeemable.

The Lousiana and Washington litany ends on a Democratic (if less prurient) note, with the unrepentant Louisiana ex-representative William "Dollar Bill" Jefferson. He was the receiver of $90,000 in frozen kickbacks, a "public servant" whose extended family contains people who have plundered New Orleans for decades and are, almost to a person, now under indictment. It seems probable from federal evidence that Bill, of all the politicians above, is the sole offender going to jail. He will go soon, as he no longer has the shelter of political office.

The day arrives   

I admit that I both laugh over and am simultaneously horrified by these events. But the "sins" of George W Bush and his party, a group that every moment abused what little public mandate it had over these last eight years, are much more serious than victimless philandering. I would, as my mother said, pray for the return of an "adulterer" of any political affiliation, rather than endure the wide varieties of personal power-mongering which America and her one-time partners in the world have had to face in the period of Bushite rule. 

The Republicans know this. They are attempting to reinvent themselves and project new faces into the limelight. But will it be the likes of Anh "Joseph" Cao or of Bobby Jindal who will be their salvation? It is almost frightening that the first choices are being made now, as I write these words.

The result: redemption awaits. Possibly on Mardi Gras Day.