David Gergen | BIO
AC360° Contributor
CNN Senior Political Analyst

The country took a well-deserved time-out last night from bleak news about jobs, deficits, health care, Iran and the like. Even if you were pulling for Peyton Manning and the Colts, you had to agree that the epic upset victory by the New Orleans Saints was the best feel-good moment for the country in more than a year.

Drew Brees and the Saints did more than deliver a storybook ending to a storybook year. They made New Orleans a fresh symbol of the American spirit – what we can do as a people when we have our backs to the wall and join together in search of a comeback.

As almost everyone knows by now, Drew Brees is himself a story of overcoming the odds. Even though he was a high school star, most colleges weren’t interested in him as a player because he was so short – six feet in cleats, far below today’s stereotype. By grit and determination, he made it into the pros but four years ago, diving on a fumble, injured his shoulder so badly that no one wanted him except for the Saints, a team with such a sorry record that it was often nicknamed the “Aints” back home.

Brees bonded with the team and became a fierce believer in New Orleans, especially after Katrina. He and his teammates have long made a Super Bowl victory – their first ever – a goal that would show both they and their city are champions.

They certainly proved that last night, beating not only one of the best quarterbacks ever in Manning but proving they were a complete team with a gutsy coach.

This moment brings renewed national attention to a city that is now showing major sparks of life. Certainly the poverty and corruption have not disappeared; the poor neighborhoods still look devastated. But scores of young Americans have swept into the city to lend helping hands, rebuilding house by house, block by block. The spirit of volunteerism is powerful. So, too, is the spirit of school reform: the flowering of charter schools and the coming of Paul Vallas as School Superintendent have both been major steps forward. And just in the past few days, the voters of New Orleans – white and black together – have elected a superb new mayor, Mitch Landrieu. Those who have known him as lieutenant governor of the state recognize that he is a strong, inspirational leader who has the potential to become the best mayor in decades.

New Orleans is not back yet, and the crown may not sit long on the temple of the Saints - one can already see Peyton Manning plotting out next year.

But isn’t this a moment to savor? Isn’t this a time to remind ourselves that if New Orleans and the Saints can rally together to get up off their backs and stand tall, so can America itself?

Program Note: Don't miss analysis by David Gergen and special coverage of the State of the Union Address tonight on CNN starting at 8 p.m. ET.

David Gergen | BIO
AC360° Contributor
CNN Senior Political Analyst

How often we have watched Barack Obama facing “the most important speech of his life” – Philadelphia, the Inaugural, Cairo, Afghanistan, etc., etc. Almost always he has risen to the occasion. But tonight’s State of the Union could require even more magic: for the first time he is delivering a message that looks virtually dead on arrival.

The past few days leading up to this speech have made clear that on his signature issues, the President is in deepening trouble:

Health Reform: Democratic leaders yesterday all but pronounced final rites over the mammoth health bill that has preoccupied Washington in recent months. The leaders said they wanted to postpone the fight for another day but everyone knows that with November elections looming, delay probably means death for universal coverage.

Cap and Trade: Legislative leaders have also made clear this week that prospects for a major cap and trade bill are finished for the year – another signature issue for Obama. Congress may pass some kind of energy bill but it will signal to the world that the U.S. isn’t yet on track to serious carbon reductions – and that in turn will place in further jeopardy the world-wide effort (China meanwhile has signaled that it may not even buy into the science of global warming.)

Job Creation: No one is quite sure what the President will propose tonight for new job measures, but CNN polls this week on the stimulus program of last year – showing that more than half of all Americans oppose it and three quarters believe that huge amounts have been wasted – show that he is running into stiff headwinds here, too. The House has passed a new $150 billion jobs bill but the Senate seems in little mood to match that. And the CBO has just projected that unemployment will remain stubbornly high for a long time to come.

Deficit Reduction: Concern about mountains of public debt are rising quickly among the public – that was one of the issues that Scott Brown rode to victory – and the President wants to use this speech tonight to convince people that he is a deficit hawk, too. But once again, the news of the past few days hasn’t been encouraging for the White House.

Tonight, for example, the President will propose a three-year freeze on domestic discretionary spending – that is, programs outside defense, homeland security, entitlements, etc. But Democrats are already pouncing on the freeze for giving up on campaign promises, and Republicans are deriding him for not being tough enough. And it is quickly dawning on the public that Obama wants to freeze spending for programs that have grown some 20 percent while he has been in office – hardly a bold step.

The deficit picture darkened further yesterday when the Senate rejected a bipartisan measure (supported by Obama and Brown) that would have set up a commission to force through long-term deficit reductions. When the President talks tonight about creating a commission on his own, everyone in Washington will know that it will be virtually toothless.

So, even before the President speaks tonight, it appears that serious deficit reduction will be almost impossible in Congress in this coming year. And the national debt will keep ballooning – by Associated Press estimates, the federal deficit this coming year will equal $4,500 for every American!

On four signature issues then – health care, cap and trade, jobs and deficits – the President’s agenda is in deep, deep trouble before he even steps to the podium tonight.

What must he do in his speech? This one is not just about the issues (though those are important). Nor is it simply whether the President moves to the center (I think he should).

Obama’s real challenge tonight is whether he can make Americans believe in him again. Millions are disappointed, others have turned against him. Can he persuade them tonight to give him a fresh chance? To sign up for a second round on his team? To rally behind him, thick or thin? That looks like the best –and perhaps the only – way he can revive a domestic agenda that, at best, is on life support.

U.S. troops search for militants in the mountainous Taliban stronghold in Paktika Province in Afghanistan.

David Gergen | BIO
AC360° Contributor
CNN Senior Political Analyst

In his Afghanistan speech tonight, Barack Obama will face one of the toughest tests of any president in modern times.

Presidents usually seek public support for sending U.S. combat troops into action just after another country has attacked us or threatened our national interest – think FDR after Pearl Harbor, Harry Truman after the invasion of South Korea, John Kennedy in the Cuban missile crisis, George H.W. Bush embarking on the Persian Gulf war, George W. Bush after 9/11 and even his decision to invade Iraq. In each case, vital interests seemed at stake, presidents acted decisively and Americans rallied ’round the flag.

But in this case, Obama is asking the public to support an escalation in a war that has already gone on so long that Americans have lost sight of why it is important and are intensely divided over whether we should spend more blood and treasure. The cold reality is that the U.S. government has done a horrible job persuading the American people that the Afghan war matters.

While the President deserves credit for engaging in serious deliberations before acting, his pause for reflection has also gone on so long – 94 days from the day of the McChrystal request to the day of his public response – that he has also sent a clear signal of inner doubts and uncertainty about next steps.

The cost has been high for the President. Four months ago, some 56 percent told Gallup/USA Today that they approved of the way he was handling Afghanistan. By last week, the numbers had reversed: only 35 percent said they still approved while 55 percent disapproved. Americans have always preferred a commander in chief to sound a clear trumpet.

Moreover, as commentator Fred Barnes pointed out a few days ago, Obama’s oratorical magic was much more effective when he was a candidate offering hope than a president urging new policies. His speeches since January have generally inspired more confidence in him than in his prescriptions. Most recently, his health care address to Congress did shore up support for legislation within his own party but after a temporary bump in polls, public opinion continued to slide in the wrong direction.

So, the odds are stacked heavily against him Tuesday night in rallying the country behind the war he envisions. The left is apt to say that whatever he does is too much while the right will say that it is too little. He will have to convince people that what he is doing is just right – in effect, he needs a Goldilocks speech.

The Gallup/USA Today poll of last week suggested how tough that may be. Some 39 percent said bring the troops home; some 37 percent said send 40,000 additional troops; only 10 percent supported a middling option of sending less than 40,000 – the option that Obama will reportedly embrace.

Does it matter whether he can unite a strong majority behind him? Many military experts think it matters a lot. A central lesson of the Vietnam War is that a president must commit the country before he commits the troops. If support is fragile, it can easily melt away over time and nervous politicians may then pull the plug on soldiers who have risked life and limb.

The truth is that it is not President Obama who has the most at stake here Tuesday night – it is our U.S. troops who will live or die in Afghanistan.

David Gergen | BIO
AC360° Contributor
CNN Senior Political Analyst

Barack Obama has recently been reading up on the presidency of John F. Kennedy. Coming home from China, he might well focus on Kennedy’s first summit overseas with the leader of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev. Indeed, we all could learn from that episode.

Like Obama, Kennedy came into office as an inspiring figure, an idealist who stirred hopes for the future and yet was inexperienced in the exercise of power. At the time, the Soviet Union was a rising nation that was threatening the global leadership of the United States.

In the fall of his first year in office, Kennedy went to Europe where he was welcomed grandly until he arrived in Vienna to sit down with Khrushchev. Kennedy, the idealist, thought that his charm and his appeals to reason would win over the Soviet leader. Instead, Khrushchev bullied him unmercifully and the men were unable to agree on anything of substance. Polite reasoning went nowhere.

According to Kennedy biographer Richard Reeves, Khruschev left the meeting telling associates, “He’s very young… not strong enough. Too intelligent and too weak.” Khrushchev concluded that he could push Kennedy around and started causing mischief from Berlin to Cuba.

Kennedy was shaken but, fortunately, he didn’t go into denial. He went into action, treating the meeting as a wake-up call. In the months that followed, he became a much tougher, more assertive president, and a year later when a showdown came over Khrushchev sneaking missiles into Cuba, Kennedy was an outstanding leader – and he turned the tables on Khrushchev.

Why bring up that story now, as President Obama comes home from Asia? Because it has considerable relevance to his meetings in China with President Hu.

Obama went into those sessions like Kennedy: with great hope that his charm and appeal to reason – qualities so admired in the United States – would work well with Hu. By numerous accounts, that is not at all what happened: reports from correspondents on the scene are replete with statements that Hu stiffed the President, that he rejected arguments about Chinese human rights and currency behavior while scolding the U.S. for its trade policies, and that he stage-managed the visit so that Obama – unlike Clinton and Bush before him – was unable to reach a large Chinese audience through television.

To be fair, President Obama seemed to handle the situation better than Kennedy did: he wasn’t humiliated, he did secure some generalized agreements, and – so the White House believes – he laid the groundwork for a productive, long-term relationship. We shall see.

But it is equally clear that this was not at all the kind of summit that an American administration would want – and it does bear some ominous similarities to the Kennedy-Khrushchev talks in Vienna.

It would seem wise not only for President Obama but for all Americans to treat this as a wake-up call.

For the President, the challenge is whether he will start approaching international affairs with a greater measure of toughness, standing up more firmly and assertively for American interests. Yes, he must still be the man of reason and peace, but that can easily be read as a sign of weakness by others unless he balances it with the inner steel that is essential in international affairs. The most recent issue of Forbes identifies Obama and Hu as the two most powerful people on the planet – but it is Obama who is Number One, not Hu.

For the United States, this trip should also send a clear message that the balance of power is changing in the world.

Even though China is still a relatively weak country compared to the U.S., it is rising rapidly, and people around the globe are wondering if China represents the future – and the U.S. the past. We need to wake up, too, recognizing that we have to pull ourselves together to solve the challenges before us – living beyond our means for too long, building up too much debt, allowing China to become our biggest creditor, refusing to overcome our polarization, allowing our political discourse to degenerate so that it is hard to find sensible answers, and on and on.

Unless we do pull together as a great people, we will find that our whole country – not just our President – will be in for a very rough ride. Downhill.

Candy Crowley and David Gergen
CNN Senior Political Correspondents

David Gergen | BIO
AC360° Contributor
CNN Senior Political Analyst

President Obama and a Democratic Congress may be on the verge of passing various legislative initiatives that in ordinary times would likely be hailed as historic milestones. But will they be bold enough to meet the tests of the extraordinary times in which we live?

Consider the reform of health insurance that Congress is likely to pass before Christmas. By any normal measure, the President’s signature on such a bill would be an event of enormous significance. After all, seven other Presidents have tried to provide universal insurance coverage to the public; Barack Obama may well be the first to succeed. Some argue that it may be the most important social legislation since the Great Depression.

Yet experts who understand health care would argue that it will probably accomplish only half of what needs to be done. This is of concern since, as the saying goes, it doesn't work to leap a 20-foot chasm in two 10-foot jumps. It is worth remembering that the President himself has frequently declared that we face two huge challenges in health care: providing universal coverage AND bringing down the spiraling costs of care. Sadly, the bill that is shaping up will do precious little to “bend the curve” of health costs.

Massachusetts is often cited as a model of the health reform that Democrats are seeking this year: the law it passed a few years ago has indeed brought universal coverage (only 3 percent of the state’s population is no longer covered) but it has failed to bring down costs, and premiums in Massachusetts are the highest in the country.

The same general story is emerging from the President’s efforts to address climate change with comprehensive legislation called “cap and trade.” The House of Representatives has passed such legislation and prospects are growing that the Senate may actually overcome strong resistance and pass a bill next year. Again, by most normal standards, that would be considered a milestone.

Yet experts on the environment know full well that the cap and trade bill has been so watered down in the House that it will fail to bring carbon emissions under control with anything like the urgency that scientists say is necessary.

The inability of the United States to pass bold legislation this year has already reduced hopes that a successor to the Kyoto Treaty can be negotiated in Copenhagen this December, when nations from around the world assemble for what has been seen as one of the most important environmental gatherings ever held. China and India will not come along with a new treaty unless they see the United States and Europe also taking dramatic steps – and even then, getting their assent will be difficult.

A similar argument can be made about financial regulation – that the need is great, that we may get some legislation from Congress (chances are brightening for consumer protection), but what emerges may be far less than what the times demand.

What we are seeing is that the challenges facing the United States have become so enormous and so urgent that even with legislative achievements that would once be considered breakthroughs, it looks like we will fall frustratingly short of what we must do to remain a great people.

The President’s team argues that compromise is inevitable in politics and that we must not let the perfect become the enemy of the good. Fair enough. If I were in the White House today, I might well be making the same arguments. But from an outside perspective – one not burdened by the agonizing efforts that the White House has made to get this far – it also seems we must be realistic with ourselves.

We must look reality squarely in the eye and recognize that the times demand that we not settle for climbing ordinary mountains; we must hoist ourselves up and climb extraordinary ones.

Are we asking enough of ourselves? Not yet, it appears.

Anderson Cooper | BIO
AC360° Anchor

Chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize committee Thorbjorn Jagland holds a picture of President Obama.

David Gergen | Bio
AC360° Contributor
CNN Senior Political Analyst

The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Obama is so unorthodox that it almost leaves one speechless. Even so, a few thoughts seem in order:

First, all Americans should join in celebrating this award to our president and congratulate him for the way he has inspired millions of citizens across the globe. Whatever one may think about Obama’s policies and politics, it is a special occasion when the Nobel Prize Committee recognizes the work and the dream of an American. We celebrate Americans who win prizes in medicine, science, and economics, and so too should we celebrate those who win for peace. It is churlish for some to attack the President and the Nobel Prize Committee today.

Second, it is clear that Barack Obama has not yet climbed the mountains that his predecessors had when they won their Peace Prizes. A Nobel was awarded to Martin Luther King, Jr. after the March on Washington, not before. Both of the two sitting presidents who won the Nobel Peace Prize previously, Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, were recognized after they had achieved substantial accomplishments. It is widely understood in the United States, even in the Obama White House, that his major accomplishments remain ahead, not behind. Just last weekend, Saturday Night Live stirred politicos with its parody of Obama, claiming he has accomplished nothing. That went too far, but it was suggestive of the country’s mood.

Third, a critical question will be how this award influences President Obama’s leadership in international affairs in the years ahead. His critics should recognize that it will strengthen his diplomatic hand, and that could be a distinct benefit for US foreign policy. Soft power, as we have learned, is often as potent as hard power in today’s world. By equal measures, the President’s supporters should recognize that there is a possible downside to this award. As much as we want a president who is a peacemaker, we also want someone who is tough enough to stand up for American interests in a dangerous world. As the President makes decisions on critical issues like Afghanistan, he may be tempted to play to some of the peacenik tendencies that we have sometimes seen in Western Europe and elsewhere. This would be wrong. He has a larger and more serious set of responsibilities in keeping America and the world safe. It is worth remembering that the American Eagle, which is embedded in the Presidential seal, holds a branch of peace in one talon but carries a fistful of arrows in the other.

David Gergen | Bio
AC360° Contributor
CNN Senior Political Analyst

In his fiery speech over Labor Day to the AFL-CIO, President Obama signaled that he intends to seize the offensive on health care this Wednesday night as he addresses a joint session of Congress. His supporters believe that it is none too soon and hope that his appearance will be a game-changer.

Obama has shown repeatedly in the past that when a speech really matters, he can sink a three-pointer from 30 feet and he knows it – “I’m LeBron, baby,” he told journalist David Mendell just before he delivered a boffo speech to the 2004 Democratic convention that catapulted him to fame.

Even so, Wednesday night’s health care speech may be one of the toughest he has faced, as he has to overcome at least three major challenges all at once.

First, he has to reverse the tide of public opinion that has turned against the Democrats’ general effort to overhaul health care. While most Americans agree that the system needs to be fixed, poll after poll shows that the country is at best divided on Obamacare as the answer – and some polls show greater numbers oppose than favor. Moreover, many of those who oppose do so passionately – a factor that heavily influences Members of Congress.

The question becomes whether opinion has become so settled that it may be too late for even an Obama to change people’s minds. After President Clinton went before a joint session in 1993 to promote his health care plan, public approval shot upward. But that was because the public was just being introduced to the President’s ideas. Later on, opinion soured and Clinton could never find a way to turn it around. Once public opinion has started to crystallize against a President, it is devilishly hard to change it – just ask George W. Bush about Iraq. We will have to wait and see how hardened opinion is today about health care.

Equally important, the President has appeared on prime time so often that he may not find as attentive an audience as he did in his early, golden months. Nor are television outlets likely to give the speech as much attention. This is Obama’s sixth prime time appearance in 8 months (two speeches, four press conferences), surpassing the records of all other presidents. Even Franklin Roosevelt gave only four fireside chats in his first eight months.

Second, the President must overcome tensions within his own Democratic party. Possibly, he will pick up a few Republican votes for reform in the next few days – everyone is now watching for the outcome of the Senate Finance Committee. But Democrats already know that to win, they cannot count on Republicans, but instead must achieve unity among themselves.

No one knows whether Obama can heal the obvious divisions within his party. Indeed, one of the surprises of this speech is that he is giving it so quickly after Congress returns from recess: most presidents would have spent time quietly working behind the scenes for a week or two, hammering out a deal within their own party, and then with a deal in hand, taken it to the public and sold it hard. That’s a more traditional way to success.

In choosing to speak before a joint session before he has a deal, Obama is running an obvious risk: that Democratic liberals from the House will emerge from the speech insisting they will pass a bill only if it has a public option and Democratic moderates in the Senate will insist they will pass a bill only if the public option is dropped. That will hardly seem like unity.

Third, the President must overcome a tension within the speech itself about his leadership. His AFL-CIO speech shows that his inclination now is to pick up a banner and rally his troops behind a battle cry, “Yes, we can! Yes, we will change health care!” To many of his liberal supporters, that kind of passionate leadership has been sorely missing from the White House in recent months.

But it is hard to give a stem-winder in favor of change, if at the same time, the President is quietly signaling, “But hey guys, we have to be realistic. If we can’t get what we want, let’s be prepared to give things away - starting with a public option.” That is not the stuff of brave, bold leadership of the kind that liberals are demanding.

How will he overcome these three challenges? None of us can be sure, and perhaps the White House is not yet fully sure, either. That’s why so much drama is now building around Wednesday night. Much is resting on the line and he is shooting from over 30 feet.

David Gergen | Bio
AC360° Contributor
CNN Senior Political Analyst

If you were sitting in the White House, it is entirely understandable that you would decide to unveil the surprise announcement of Ben Bernanke’s reappointment today: that may be the best and only way to divert attention from other economic news that is eye-popping.

The Bernanke appointment will be welcomed in financial circles, both here and overseas, because he is widely seen as the man who stopped us from going over a cliff. While some in Congress remain relentless critics of Bernanke, President Obama will generally win high marks for a reassuring move.

Strikingly, this is the third time in recent years that a president of one party has reappointed the head of the Federal Reserve first selected by a president of the other party: Ronald Reagan reappointed Paul Volcker, a Carter appointee; Bill Clinton reappointed Alan Greenspan, a Reagan appointee; and now Obama is reappointing a George W. Bush appointee. All of the choices have been seen as wise at the time.

Yet even the Bernanke story cannot fully deflect attention from the other economic story engulfing the administration today: its official announcement of new economic projections – in particular, its acknowledgment that deficits over the coming decade will be even higher than it said only three months ago. Now, the administration is predicting that instead of $7 trillion in new deficits, the country will rack up a staggering $9 trillion in new deficits for the 2010-2019 period. (The Congressional Budget Office has published its own numbers today that are largely parallel.)

Deficits of that magnitude would be extraordinarily dangerous and irresponsible for the country. They would double the national debt, risk much higher inflation, saddle future taxpayers with annual interest payments of over $900 billion, make us even more reliant upon China as a creditor, and over time would weaken us as a great nation. Talk about trend lines that are unsustainable!

Health care reform was already in growing trouble before this report. These deficit projections clearly add another significant threat to its passage. The administration will now have to persuade Congress and a skeptical public that it would be financially prudent to embark upon an ambitious new entitlement program in the teeth of dangerously growing deficits.

As vital and as morally right as it is to extend health insurance to everyone in need, the public is also wise to worry about the costs of robust reform. People have long memories, and they will recall that when Medicare was passed in the mid-1960s during the LBJ years, the House Ways and Means Committee projected that Medicare would cost about $12 billion in 1990; in 1990, it reportedly cost some $107 billion.

When Washington enacted prescription drug reform in the George W. Bush years, the administration put a price tag on it of $400 billion over nine years; new estimates have projected a cost of $724 billion over nine years. More recently, Massachusetts has embraced a health reform plan that is widely hailed – and serves as a model for the national effort this year – but it, too, has far outstripped original cost estimates.

In view of all this, President Obama has a choice. He can push forward with health reform efforts, giving short shrift to these deficit concerns. If so – if he continues to insist that Washington is just too “wee-weed up” - he will find that some of his strongest allies will become more reluctant on a big health reform bill this year.

Or he can come to grips with these grim forecasts and present to the nation a credible, comprehensive plan for reining in long-term deficits before Congress acts on health reform. The second path demands more courage – and is also the one of real leadership.

Sen. Arlen Specter, left, answers questions Tuesday during a forum in Lebanon, Pennsylvania.

David Gergen | Bio
AC360° Contributor
CNN Senior Political Analyst

When a long-time voter favorite in Pennsylvania, Senator Arlen Specter, faces an hour of jeering and booing over health care reform, as he did today, the question arises: how will these raucous town halls affect the outcome in one of the central legislative battles of our time?

The answer does not appear to be encouraging for reformers. Granted, the way that opposition has been ginned up by outside forces does discount these outbursts some. The way that opponents are also disrupting these town halls, drowning out the capacity for civil discourse, is also stirring a backlash among many citizens on the sidelines.

But beneath the din it is also obvious that there is a growing bloc of voters on the right and a good many in the middle who are becoming passionately opposed to the overhaul of the health care system envisioned by liberal Democrats, especially in the House. It is the intensity of their feeling as much as the size of the crowd that may shape the voting on Capitol Hill in coming weeks.

The President’s White House team entered the August recess knowing that they had lost ground with the public during July. But they saw some evidence that opinion was stabilizing last week and with the Congress getting out of town, they thought that Obama would be able to recapture center stage and could hammer home his newly-crafted message about the consumer protections coming from reforms. If they could show opinion turning in their favor by early September, they would have a much better chance of securing major legislation.

But the way these town halls have turned noisy, and sometimes ugly, has kept much of the media focus on Congress and on disruptions. It is not yet clear whether the President can regain control of the argument.

For now, the intensity of the opposition – coming on the heels of a growing wariness in national polls – is shifting the odds for what will eventually happen with reform. In this week’s issue of the National Journal, correspondents Brian Friel and Richard E. Cohen provide a valuable insight into possible endgames. They report that there are four possible outcomes:

(1) A major bipartisan reform bill is passed;
(2) A major Democratic reform bill is passed over nearly united Republican opposition;
(3) The Democrats cannot agree among themselves and pass Health Care Lite, a very watered down version of reform;
(4) Failure

Looking at the chances today, in the midst of all this brouhaha, one would have to say that the odds for outcomes one and two are going down. It is hard to see how a lot of Republicans will sign up for a bipartisan bill in the teeth of this opposition; similarly, it may be tougher for moderate Democrats, especially new members from Republican-leaning districts, to sign on to a Democratic-only bill. That means the odds are going up for outcomes three and, yes, four.

Does this mean that reform is dying? Not at all. It is still possible that if the protests continue at a high decibel level, more people in the middle will grow disgusted and rally to the President. And given his political and rhetorical talents, it is more than possible that Barack Obama himself can turn this around. But for the moment, the raucous clips coming out of Senator Specter’s session with his constituents along with other clips from other town halls - as offensive as they are to many (including me) - are also presenting a growing threat to reform.

President Obama has invited police Sgt. James Crowley and Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates for beer.

David Gergen | Bio
AC360° Contributor
CNN Senior Political Analyst

President Obama promised last week that he would convert the ugly confrontation between a black Harvard scholar and a white police officer into a “teachable moment” for the nation. As Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Sgt. Jim Crowley come to the White House today for their “beer summit,” how can he succeed? How should the three men structure their conversation and how should they then talk to the country?

For counsel, I turned to an excellent family therapist who has had a long record of success in counseling couples (aka, my wife Anne), and she provided some sound answers. Each of the parties, she said, has to recognize up front that during a contentious incident that set them off, their minds were flooded with emotions that overcame their rational selves.

The key to achieving reconciliation is for each of them to talk through the incident as they saw it each step of the way, analyzing what they saw and said, and with their rational minds, trying to figure out how they might have handled it better. It is critical that the other player(s) not interrupt but let them tell their story fully. Hearing the other person respectfully allows one to see how their perspectives differed – and from that, begin to reframe the incident in ways that bring them closer together.

Once Gates, Crowley and the President have drawn lessons among themselves and begun the process of reconciliation (they may not get there right away), then they could be in a position to speak to a broader audience about what they learned – “the teachable moment”.

But there are two things that are also critical to remember: they have to talk quietly with each other first and find some common understandings before they talk to the public. Otherwise, the exercise will be phony. In addition, their conversation has to be among the three alone, without other family members or friends accompanying them to the White House. Otherwise, they could play to the crowd.

If all of it works, the nation could well benefit from a conversation that deepens our understanding of how racial and class conflicts arise and how we can get to higher ground. Sound advice – from a great source!

David Gergen | Bio
AC360° Contributor
CNN Senior Political Analyst

Heading toward a showdown on his top domestic priority - and possibly the linchpin to his presidency - Barack Obama carries two handicaps into his prime time press conference tonight.

First, he does not yet have a fully formed health care plan to "sell" to the country. Ordinarily, a president trying to persuade the public on a contentious issue has a firm plan to present in prime time. But the nature of the process in health care has meant that five different Congressional committees are working on ideas - and two of the most influential have not even reported yet on their recommendations.

As a result, the President is left to rail against the status quo - and he does this with great persuasiveness - but he is unable to bring his much respected oratorical power to bear on convincing people exactly what to do to fix things.

Second, the President is taking to the airwaves at a time when he no longer seems to have as big a welcome mat as in the past. Not only are his high poll numbers slipping a bit but so are his audience numbers. For his first prime time press conference in February, some 49.5 million people - a whopping number - tuned in. For his second, in March, 40.4 million watched. And in his third, in April, the total dropped to 28.8 million. Observers will closely watch the returns tonight.

He may be testing the outer limits of media presence. Tonight will mark his fifth major prime time appearance in his first six months. Even FDR, a legendary communicator, had only three fireside chats in the same time frame. (George W. Bush held four prime time press conferences in his whole eight years).

Obama's lieutenants will tell you he has a history of rising to the occasion and that already he has advanced health care reform farther than any of his Democratic predecessors. They are right on both arguments. But they know as well this will be one of the steepest, most important climbs of his young presidency.