France's new socialist President, Francois Hollande, may turn out to be a valuable new friend as well.

He will be welcomed at the White House before the G8 conference gets underway.

There is no doubt this summit will be dominated by the latest appalling and enthralling instalment of the Greek tragedy.

Mr Obama is by no means alone in urgently wanting more action to stop the crisis in its tracks before it spirals even further out of control, wrecks the European economy and sends shock waves across the Atlantic.

Mr Hollande is something of an unknown quantity in Washington, although the White House sent a team to Paris last week to get to know his closest advisers. I get the impression they liked what they heard.

How the two men get on personally will matter a lot. But Mr Obama likes ideas more than chit-chat and they are, at least on the surface, ideological allies.

Most of the key European leaders he's dealt with are from the centre-right. So Mr Hollande, a fellow member of the centre-left may come as a welcome change. I've been joking for a while that President Obama is the last Keynesian standing. Perhaps not any more.

The White House is unambiguous in its support for his agenda.

Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser, told me what the administration is paying attention to in Europe.

"We've seen not just President Hollande but many different leaders within Europe acknowledge the importance of pursuing growth, at the same time as they're pursuing the austerity targets, so we think that sets the basis for a good discussion," he said.

He said the increased focus on growth was welcome, but what does he mean?

"Things like a growth pact, as you had Chancellor Merkel make comments about, perhaps some type of stimulus around Greece, so we think that all of these are elements of the package that can help Europeans deal with the crisis they are in and contribute to the global recovery."

I am not suggesting for a moment that it will be Mr Obama and Mr Hollande against the rest, for Mr Hollande is not the only new boy.

This is the first G8 for Italy's Mario Monti too. He is seen as someone who's moving his country in a credible direction, and who may be a source of new ideas.

The most vocal demands for more action have been from British Prime Minister David Cameron. He's been outspoken on the need to bring the crisis to a head, one way or another.

And while defending his government's austerity programme he, too, is talking about growth, more "collective support and collective responsibility" and a new eurozone monetary policy.

President Obama, the White House says, wants to provide leadership, and stress it is imperative there be a comprehensive solution to the crisis.

He'll do it in a fairly cozy, intimate setting. There's only enough room at Camp David, nestled amid the Maryland mountains, for a cabin for every leader, and they'll meet around a dining room table.

The G8 used to be for leaders of the main economies to chew the fat in an informal setting, without agendas or advisers, and he wants it to be more like that again.

In this intimate setting Angela Merkel might find herself under some very polite post-prandial pressure.

The Americans have never understood why Germany has not taken their advice and allowed the European Central Bank to behave more like the Fed.

They've made the point many times in the past and have always been rebuffed. But the dynamics in the room have shifted slightly and they'll make the point again. As Ben Rhodes put it very diplomatically:

"It's a European challenge in the eurozone and it's going to demand a European solution - we've always said that.

"You can look at the lessons of our own crisis where you needed very assertive action by government to send a message to markets that we were going to deal with the crisis, that we were going to recapitalise banks, that we were going to get growth and job creation moving again."

"What we can do is share lessons from our own experience."

Don't expect any dramatic statements after the meeting. I am certainly not holding my breath for anything that could really be called "news".

There might be real movement out in Maryland's hinterlands, but any result may only come to light after another European summit next week.

A deep voice intones cynically: "Defending family values and the pursuit of happiness. What a concept!"

More than a week after President Obama made his announcement it is still the burning matter of the moment on the show.

Steve Gill thinks it was a political calculation that has backfired, a desperate president short of money trying to appeal to potential financial backers in Hollywood. But he says it's offended and united the South.

"Folks on both sides of the political aisle, Democrats and Republicans, black and white, Hispanic voters as well, are rejecting this sort of cultural imposition from the White House," he says.

"We're here in the Buckle of the Bible Belt in Nashville, Tennessee, and the Bible says it's wrong and people here are going to go with the Bible, not Barack Obama."

But, I ask him, will it have any impact on the election? I assume most of his listeners wouldn't vote for the president anyway.

"I think those who were not exactly motivated by Mitt Romney - had concerns about his Mormon faith - are now ready to go to the mat to vote against Barack Obama.

"Four years ago, 17 million Christian Evangelicals did not vote. They sat it out and there are lots of efforts to mobilise them, to get them to vote. Obama won by 7 million votes.

"Christian Evangelicals could have made the difference. He has now done what Mitt Romney could not do - he's mobilised and motivated them to vote against him and I think he'll pay a price in November."

If Christian conservatives feel the South is under siege, gay activists feel similarly beleaguered.

It is wrong to see the South as monolithic or unchanging. I have been surprised at how many little pockets of liberalism there are - in college towns or just areas of cities.

But Chris Sanders of the Tennessee Equality Project looks a little weary when I meet him for a coffee. He says he was given a lift by the president's declaration, but such aspirations seem a long way from the reality in this state.

He says their concern is battling bullying in schools, discrimination at work and proposed state laws like the "don't say gay" bill or one outlawing a private university from including sexuality in its anti-discrimination legislation.

"It is different," Mr Sanders continues. "There are people fighting back, to be sure, but the fact that they have to fight back so much is very telling in terms of the culture. I think a lot of people look at issues of sexuality and gender through the prism of their religious views."

"Tennessee is one of four states with more than 50% of the population identifying as Evangelical Protestant and surveys constantly show that group is about the most likely to oppose equal protection."

He says their most important allies are black state legislators who do not have to be persuaded of the merits of anti-discrimination laws.

But the views of the black churches do present President Obama with a problem.

Pastor Bruce Maxwell has run the Lake Providence Missionary Baptist Church for 30 years. From small beginnings it is now a large, imposing building, set in green parkland, with a congregation nearly 6,000 strong.

He tells me he was shocked by what the president said and thinks he gave in to political pressure to be politically correct, adding "most nations that have embraced this idea in history before, they have crumbled, or declined".

On his desk, among the souvenirs and religious texts, there is a picture of President Obama set in crystal. I ask him if it will cost the president his vote, or that of members of his flock.

"I think people will set aside the issue and vote for the man," he says.

I press him if it is a fundamental point. Not as much as Mr Romney's Mormon faith he adds.

JPMorgan lost $2bn (£1.2bn), and its outspoken chairman Jamie Dimon has lost some political credibility. He's been at the forefront of the argument against the Obama administration's attempt to bring in tighter financial regulation.

In particular he's trying to fight off the "Volcker rule", named after Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve. It stops banks from investing in hedge funds.

Mr Dimon was winning. Now his company's huge losses strengthen the hand of those arguing in favour of the new regulations and leaves Mr Dimon looking slightly foolish, although some say the Volcker rule wouldn't have had any impact in this case.

This plays into November's elections because one of Mitt Romney's central arguments is that President Obama has tangled the economy up in red tape.

Financial regulation is at the heart of that argument. Republicans have been ferocious in their opposition to the new rules on banks.

I can't find any specific comment Mitt Romney has made on the Volcker rule, but it is part of the new regulations on Wall Street made by the Dodd-Frank Act, which he has promised to repeal.

Mr Romney's website says that this law is "a quantum increase in the scale of the regulatory burden on the American economy".

Although quantum doesn't mean "big", I think that's what the Romney team meant. The promise is to repeal Dodd-Frank and replace it with a "streamlined, modern regulatory framework".

That could, of course, include something like the Volcker rule. But that would only blur his attack, and be controversial with Republicans.

All sorts of good arguments can be made on the other side, but many Americans are likely to see the JPMorgan debacle as demonstrating the need for tougher rules. It blunts Romney's offensive against red tape.

JPMorgan's loss could be Obama's gain.

The media didn't ask him. And he certainly wasn't going to tell. I am told his campaign staff really thought they could get away with not touching this hot-button issue, and go through until election night leaving his views draped with hazy protestations about the ongoing "evolution" of his views.

I have trouble believing that they thought he could avoid the question until November. But there is no doubt that the rapid evolution of his views into the limelight was not intelligent design. Unless you see Vice-President Joe Biden as the creator of presidential frankness.

It is not surprising. The story, first broken by Wired, is fairly astonishing, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, must be furious.

The course taught officers there was no such thing as moderate Islam and that they should consider the religion their enemy.

It advocated "total war" against all the world's Muslims, including possible nuclear attacks on the holy cities of Mecca and Medina and the wiping out civilian populations.

The Pentagon has confirmed the course material found on their website is authentic.

As far as I can see this is not intended in any sense as a rather sick academic exercise in stretching the bounds of what could be thought. It is actually what the officer teaching it believes.

In other words: completely nutty stuff that would disgrace the wilder fringes of the blogosphere.

So, not surprisingly, Gen Dempsey has ordered a full investigation into what other US military schools might be teaching about the religion.

The voluntary course aimed at senior officers was taught at the Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Virginia, for a year.

Gen Dempsey described the course as "counter to our values of appreciation for religious freedom and cultural awareness" and "just objectionable, academically irresponsible".

It came to light when one of the officers on the course complained last month. There is now an investigation into how the course was approved and why it was part of the curriculum.

A lieutenant colonel has been suspended from teaching, but for the moment keeps his job. The Pentagon hopes a full report will be out by the end of the month.

What does seem rather surprising is that all those commanders, captains and colonels must have sat through the course and not felt the need to tell someone that something rather weird was going on.

The media didn't ask him. And he certainly wasn't going to tell.

I am told his campaign staff really thought they could get away with not touching this hot button issue, and go through until election night leaving his views draped with hazy protestations about the ongoing "evolution" of his views.

I have trouble believing that they thought he could avoid the question until November. But there is no doubt that the rapid evolution of his views into the limelight was not intelligent design.

Unless you see Vice President Joe Biden as the creator of presidential frankness.

The "Veep" is sometimes regarded in Washington as a bit of a loose canon for actually answering questions.

It seems a stage too far to call it a gaffe when a political speaks honestly. But his declaration that he was "absolutely comfortable" did not go well in the White House.

It led to a media feeding frenzy and a couple of torrid days of questions for Mr Obama's spokesman. Swiftly followed by this hastily arranged interview with ABC News.

It had become a question of character.

Coming out against gay marriage would be a non-starter. It Is not what he thinks and it would enrage crucial supporters.

At a time when his staff are trying to project the image of a strong, tough president, looking too scared to voice an opinion about this iconic issue would have looked terrible.

There are real risks. It may make it harder to get some Christian African-Americans to come out and vote. These views won't help him win the important states of North Carolina and Virginia.

But if pundits view his decision as dangerous, many supporters will see it as courageous. Views are changing fast in America.

With a poll out recently suggesting a 50/48 split in favour of gay marriage, Rick Santorum fulminating about "social engineering" by "the hard left" may delight some Republicans, and Mitt Romney's repetition that marriage is between a man and a woman will reassure others.

But many Democrats would rather their man led, than followed.

Just because the timing of this announcement was unplanned and unwanted doesn't mean it was undebated within the White House.

They may have seen little alternative, but also recognise that President Obama gets some kudos for being the first president to support gay marriage.

It injects a little hope and change into a campaign where supporters strain to find much of either.

The media didn't ask him. And he certainly wasn't going to tell.

I am told his campaign staff really thought they could get away with not touching this hot button issue, and go through until election night leaving his views draped with hazy protestations about the ongoing "evolution" of his views.

I have trouble believing that they thought he could avoid the question until November. But there is no doubt that the rapid evolution of his views into the limelight was not intelligent design.

Unless you see Vice-President Joe Biden as the creator of presidential frankness.

Hope and change?

I was inclined to scoff when ABC called their special news report a "historic political and cultural moment", but on reflection the hype is right.

President Obama, who had looked a little lame suggesting that his position on gay marriage was evolving (and here is how it evolved) has now come out personally, firmly, in favour.

He said at one time he thought that civil partnership was enough.

But now: "I've just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married."

He said there was a generational change and cited his daughters as an example.

"There have been times where Michelle and I have been sitting around the dinner table and we're talking about their friends and their parents and Malia and Sasha, it wouldn't dawn on them that somehow their friends' parents would be treated differently," he said.

"It doesn't make sense to them and frankly, that's the kind of thing that prompts a change in perspective."

There is a risk in this. For some it will further brand Mr Obama as the devil in disguise, destroying the fabric of America. That sharpens the election, but it does no harm to his campaign.

Most social conservatives will not vote for Mr Obama anyway. But there are natural supporters, like African-American evangelical Christians, who won't like this.

North Carolina, an important swing state, has just voted to outlaw gay marriage and partnerships.

But Obama explicitly mentioned his religious faith:

"When we think about our faith, the thing at root that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it's also the Golden Rule, you know, treat others the way you would want to be treated."

While not doubting that the president has struggled long and hard with this, this seems to me a deliberate moment.

Maybe the timing was rushed, but I am sure the campaign had looked at this again and again. I suspect they calculated this will fire up liberals, and make them more likely to vote.

It is after all not only a very divisive issue, it is something for the future, something that can "evolve" still further in a second term.

The US is a smorgasbord of policies when it comes to gay partnership rights.

At a federal level, the one thing that could be done is to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. The law means that other states don't have to recognise rights granted by one state. There is no sign, and perhaps no likelihood that Mr Obama would back repeal.

But it is the logical next move and I would expect campaigners will want to know what his personal views mean in term of government policy. It's not just about the economy, after all.

You might say today that the firebrand conservative Barry "extremism-in-the-defence-of-liberty-is-no-vice" Goldwater has now won his campaign to purge his party of moderates, it has just taken him 48 years longer than he had hoped.

It is commonplace around Washington to hear people - mainly Democrats, but not exclusively - bemoan the passing of bipartisan politicians of days gone by.

They are thinking of people like Senator Richard Lugar who lost his primary election against a Tea Party candidate, and so lost the seat he had held for 38 years.

He was a gentleman from another era: careful, considered, rather old-fashioned, happy to behave like an elder statesman, someone who deliberately sought agreement rather than tried to exaggerate differences.

You can see the scale of the problem he had made for himself when you consider the two politicians who first rushed to praise him.

There was Democratic Senator John Kerry, who called his deselection a "tragedy".

He went on: "This is a tough period in American politics, but I'd like to think that we'll again see a United States Senate where Dick Lugar's brand of thoughtful, mature, and bipartisan work is respected and rewarded.

"That kind of seriousness of purpose should never go out of fashion."

Then President Barack Obama, the man many Tea Party supporters believe is putting America in mortal danger, called him a friend and said: "I found during my time in the Senate that he was often willing to reach across the aisle and get things done.

"My administration's efforts to secure the world's most dangerous weapons has been based on the work that Senator Lugar began, as well as the bipartisan co-operation we forged during my first overseas trip as Senator to Russia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan."

Mr Lugar would delight in such praise. That is how he damned himself.

Indeed, one of his opponent's campaigning lines was that Mr Lugar had been called President Obama's favourite Republican. He promised he would never earn that soubriquet.

It is why talk of the Tea Party waning is nonsense. It may not have the presidential candidate it wants, but only because there was no such individual.

Broadly speaking, it now has the policies it wants, the Republican Party it wants and the adversarial style of politics it wants.

Politico quotes one Tea Party leader, Greg Fettig: "The message to the establishment is, 'You're our servants. We're the masters. Do what you're supposed to do, adhere to the constitution, or we'll fire you.'"

Death by deselection was a familiar fate to Labour politicians in the 1970s, at the hands of the left.

Here it is the right who are using internal party democracy to purify their party.

There are many reasons why the conservatives have seized control of the Republican Party.

But at least part of the answer is a simple historical trend. The US party system has taken an immense amount of time to escape the distorting legacy of civil war and segregation.

The long process of becoming normal parties of left and right began in the 1900s and is not quite complete more than a century later. The trouble is that the American system does not function without good will and agreement.

If you think you have seen gridlock, just wait and watch Goldwater's final victory.

US President Barack Obama might heed that. His contention that his position on gay marriage is evolving looks at best lame and at worst dishonest - as though he is a mere spectator neutrally watching his own position develop of its own accord.

Evolution takes aeons, but the president hasn't even got weeks. His spokesman has just said that he has an "unparalleled" record on gay rights and he rather awkwardly suggests that the president will, some day soon, make his position clearer.

"I can tell you that I'm sure it is the case that he will be asked again at some point when he gives interviews or press conferences about this issue, and I'll leave it to him to describe his personal views."

Could that be a touch of exasperation from the man who has to defend the president's views?

Given that most of us would suspect the president's liberal instincts would make him favour gay marriage, you have to ask: "What's the problem?"

Most social conservatives are going to vote Republican anyway. But not all of them. Many strongly Christian African-Americans will have profoundly conservative views about this.

And Mr Obama is desperate for this usually loyal group to turn out and vote for him. He doesn't want any distraction that might curb their enthusiasm.

But there is an "on the other hand": one report suggests one-in-six of Mr Obama's big fundraisers are gay and his campaign has gone out of its way to court the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) vote.

So, a firm decision probably means offending someone and losing some votes. This evolution is about survival of the fittest - which policy mutation allows the most votes to survive.

But now they seem to have adopted it as their main message: on a banner behind the presumed Republican candidate when he speaks, in campaign emails and in TV ads.

And, of course, it comes complete with an iconic image of a dole queue that stretches back into both the middle distance and into political history.

Given that politics is also littered with shock horror accusations of plagiarism, it was wise of the Romney campaign to admit that this was a "tribute" to the Saatchi brothers' 1979 poster for Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Party "Labour isn't working".

Even the photo of the long trail of the disconsolate and out-of-work is, as far as I can see, exactly the same image, with the words "unemployment office" in a different font and the picture changed from colour to black-and-white.

This means, of course, that the presidential hopeful is using a line of out-of-work British folk to make his point.

Well, not quite. As the BBC discovered some time ago the queue was made up of a handful of volunteers from the Hendon Young Conservatives, Photoshopped (or the 70s equivalent) to appear to look like a lengthy row of people.

It seems a little slack not to get some young Republicans to perform the same trick and I would love to know what any one in the original line-up makes of all this.

The poster won an advertising industry "best political ad of the century", so perhaps Mr Romney hopes he can win a similar award for this century.

But there is one problem. "Labour isn't working" is a moderately amusing pun.

Labour, you see, has two meanings. The British political party, and labour, the dictionary definition: "workers, especially manual workers, considered collectively".

As well as raising a smile, it rubbed in the point that the Labour Party wasn't even working for the people it claimed to represent.

Then you have the Romney version. Obama - the president's name - isn't working.

And Obama, meaning, er, no, that's the problem. It doesn't mean anything else. The ad is a single entendre and so lacks the punch of the original.

That is why some are claiming the double meaning is in the whole sentence and that it is a racist stereotype.

This interpretation has been widely mocked by those who say some people will invent racism in anything.

British influences and sinister signs are also being seen in President Obama's slogan, "Forward".

Some see it as a direct lift from the Labour Party's 2005 campaign, "Forward, not back", which struck me as rather weedy at the time.

It certainly didn't really make people sit up and take notice.

I immediately thought of the Italian Socialist newspaper, Avanti!, once edited by Benito Mussolini, which became a favourite slogan of the futurists and fascists.

Others have noticed - not a coincidence - what they see as a real confection. They think President Obama is drawing on a long communist history of use of the simple word, particularly as a newspaper title.

Others have seen echoes of the US Progressive movement or the Israeli opposition.

It could just be that if a politician wants a single word to describe the direction they want to take their country, "forward" has more resonance than "sideways" or "diagonally".

But my favourite suggestion is that it is a direct lift from The Simpsons and the aliens on the show Kang and Kodos, who proclaim: "We must go forward, not backward, upward, not forward; and always twirling, twirling, twirling toward freedom!"

I had been wondering what on earth would be new about these rallies. After all, for months he has been turning up in a couple of swing states every week arguing his case and highlighting the ways in which he claimed the Republicans were blocking sensible proposals.

This was official government business, not an election campaign, they told us, but it was hard to spot the difference.

The difference this weekend is that it got personal. He's calling Mitt Romney out by name.

Mind you, he went out of his way to make sure it didn't sound too personal.

"Governor Romney is a patriotic American who has raised a wonderful family, and he has much to be proud of," he said.

"He's run a large financial firm, and he's run a state."

But he went on: "I think he has drawn the wrong lessons from those experiences. He sincerely believes that if CEOs and wealthy investors like him make money, the rest of us will automatically prosper as well."

Obama is also sounding a positive, patriotic note. It is a familiar, but often successful tactic by an incumbent - to portray your opponents as running the country down.

"The other side won't be offering these Americans a real answer to these questions. They won't offer a better vision or a new set of ideas... Over and over again, they will tell you that America is down and out."

The Romney campaign have condemned all this as "the same distractions, distortions, excuses, and finger pointing that we've grown used to from this White House."

No matter how hard Barack Obama tries to make this election about "hype and blame", as Mitt Romney put it, "it's still the economy - and we're not stupid."

That is the huge hurdle that Obama has to leap. As the Washington Post wisely if inelegantly put it: "Obama launches campaign against Romney, but his real opponent is the economy".

One message you could take from the two European elections is the scarcely surprising one that incumbents get kicked out when the economy is bad.

But you could also argue those particular incumbents are suffering for implementing austerity programmes.

Americans may have a different attitude towards government spending but it will be fascinating to see how Romney fares with his promise of deeper cuts against Obama's arguments for continued stimulus for some areas of the economy.

The Obama administration looks like it has been caught on the hop and the embassy is being portrayed by many as either fools or knaves.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney says it is a dark day for freedom and a day of shame for the Obama administration.

In some of his numerous telephone interviews, Mr Chen suggests that he feels let down by America. Although he did not say that talking to the BBC.

Elsewhere, he has suggested that he was pretty much forced to leave to save the US embarrassment as important talks get underway.

President Obama's spokesman says it is "not the case" that Mr Chen has been abandoned, adding that talks were still going on with him, his family, and the Chinese government.

The confusion has arisen because Mr Chen has changed his mind about staying in China, although that is not the central problem.

He changed his mind because he took the threat to send his family home as a death sentence, whereas the embassy seems to have missed this interpretation.

The US ambassador to China, Gary Locke, says he spent five hours a day he spent five hours a day with Mr Chen and at that no point did he ask for asylum.

"He made it very, very clear from the very, very beginning that he wanted to stay in China, that he wanted to be part of the struggle to improve the human rights within China, and to gain greater liberty and democracy for the people of China.

"We asked him, did you want to go to the United States, and he said no," Mr Locke told reporters.

He says that Mr Chen rejected one deal but then accepted another.

"And then we asked him what did he want to do, did he want to leave, was he ready to leave. And we waited several minutes and then suddenly he jumped up, very excited, very eager, and said, 'Let's go,' in front of many, many witnesses.

"We then proceeded to take him down to the van with the doctors, translators, and many other personnel. Before he went into the van, I asked him again: 'Is this what you want to do? Are you ready to leave the embassy?' And he said yes."

But the heart of the affair remains the same.

What still strikes me is the promise, made by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, that the US would act as guarantors that the Chinese would keep their promises to allow Mr Chen liberty and freedom to study law.

"The United States government and the American people are committed to remaining engaged with Mr Chen and his family in the days, weeks, and years ahead," Mrs Clinton said.

When she first said this it looked bold, but now it seems reckless.

Some critics of the administration are portraying the embassy as inept bunglers under pressure to remove a distraction before the big talks got under way.

Others claim that others that President Obama has been cold-blooded and ruthless.

Until we know the outcome it is not wise to rush to judgment. But President Obama is playing for high stakes, at home and abroad.

He spent most of the time in a detailed review of the highlights of his own career and future plans as a conservative sage. It had been expected that he would endorse Mitt Romney. But blink and you would have missed him even talking about the presumptive Republican nominee. I don't think the grudging acceptance that he was marginally better than the man in the White House really qualifies as an endorsement. It was so lacking in enthusiasm that it was several notches on the thermometer down from lukewarm.

In effect, it was telling conservatives who may not be happy with Mr Romney that they are stuck with him and have nowhere else to go. This may be the sober assessment of many Republicans. The Romney camp may be annoyed by their former rival's brusqueness, but they should not be too bothered. After all, Mr Gingrich is leaving the race because he has not got enough support. There are hardly legions hanging on his every word.

But the Democrats will be delighted. They are already making the most of Mr Gingrich's "wild ride". They have put out a video featuring the former speaker calling the former governor a liar, and a man who will not keep his word.

When he left the protection of the American embassy he reportedly told Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, "I want to kiss you", according to the state department.

Those close to Mr Chen say he simply expressed his wish to meet her.

If the confusion was just about a potential peck on the cheek, all would be plain sailing.

But Mr Chen is also saying that he only left the embassy because Chinese authorities had threatened to beat his wife to death.

Or he thought that is what lay behind their words. The US embassy says no such threat was made.

He also now appears to want to spend sometime abroad, which is striking given his earlier determination to stay in China.

But clear the clutter away and it is obvious that this is an important moment between China and the US.

The Chinese government has promised that Mr Chen will be allowed to stay in the country with his family and be allowed to study.

Twitter is alive with suggestions that US has been tricked. So Mrs Clinton may not feel like kissing Mr Chen, even if he wanted to.

He's put the Obama administration in a tricky position.

They have embraced the role of guarantors with apparent enthusiasm, ensuring that China keeps its promises and Mr Chen is treated well.

"Making these commitments a reality is the next crucial task," Mrs Clinton said earlier. "The United States government and the American people are committed to remaining engaged with Mr Chen and his family in the days, weeks, and years ahead."

At the moment it is not even certain they can "remain engaged" over the next few hours.

Senior state department officials travelling with Mrs Clinton talk very fondly of Mr Chen and have gone out their way to stress the importance of what has happened.

They say Mr Chen wanted to stay in China because "he wanted to participate with what he thinks is ongoing in China, which is a very exciting, dynamic period that he believes that he has an important role to play, as do we".

You can hardly get more explicit that that. It is also quite an about-turn for President Obama's administration, accused of putting good relations with China ahead of human rights.

Chen Guangcheng is a blind, self-taught lawyer from a peasant family, whose campaign against forced abortion has become something of a cause celebre in the US. One newspaper labelled him "the Chinese Gandhi".

The obvious question is what happens if in a few months time the Chinese authorities decide to duff him up and send him to prison?

What will the US do? What could the US do? The intractable nature of the problem makes me think there is more going on than is immediately apparent.

His dramatic release from the US compound comes on the eve of important talks between the US and China. It's the fourth year of the strategic and economic dialogue.

I cannot recall any equivalent of these meetings, led by the two most senior figures in Mr Obama's administration. They are a top-to-bottom discussion of the many issues that matter to the world's two biggest powers. Last year's meeting covered everything from counter-terrorism to illegal logging.

In the past some in the Obama administration have been willing sweep human rights under the carpet when they get in the way of dealing with "big picture" issues like North Korea, Iran or the world financial system.

But now there is a growing view that the really big picture, critical for the whole world, is the evolution of the Chinese political system and that human rights are a crucial litmus test.

The leadership changes in China this year are at least as important as the US presidential election, but far more difficult to interpret. There is little doubt there's a considerable amount of turmoil.

Some think Mr Chen has become caught up in a power struggle between those in the Chinese Government who want to increasingly operate within the rule of law and those who believe crushing dissent is all important.

The US has a huge vested interest in the outcome of the struggle, but one might think it would want to keep at a safe distance. But in the case of Mr Chen they have been forced to take sides and make promises that are very hard to keep, unless some Chinese officials are on board.

If the Chinese government is more monolithic than I have suggested, then the US is on a very high-risk path indeed.

There are already signs the deal may be unravelling. This could be a defining moment for Sino-American relations.

But when he walked up to a podium in Bagram Air Base to stand in front of sandy coloured military vehicles, one draped with the stars and stripes, he was solemn, almost understated.

But there was no mistaking the audience.

After all, it was four in the morning in Afghanistan, but prime-time in America.

There were no new announcements but the path ahead is clearer. The Nato meeting in Chicago next month will agree that Afghans will lead combat operations by next year. They will be in charge of their own security by 2014.

The goal of destroying al-Qaeda was in reach, Mr Obama said. Talks were taking place with those Taliban who wanted to renounce violence and al-Qaeda.

Intriguingly, a senior official travelling with the president said that those talks were on hold because of "internal political turbulence" within the Taliban.

At its heart, this speech was a balancing act. The vast majority of Americans want to get out of Afghanistan and end the war.

But anything that looks like cutting and running, leaving the Afghans in the lurch, would be criticised by the foreign policy establishment and by some allies, as well as his obvious opponents.

So he was explicit about what the deal he had just signed with President Karzai was and what it wasn't.

It was a 10-year commitment to support Afghanistan, to pay for training and to support the country. It wasn't about having military bases, or American troops patrolling the mountains and cities of Afghanistan.

Why not stay longer? This was his answer:

"Our goal is not to build a country in America's image, or to eradicate every vestige of the Taliban. These objectives would require many more years, many more dollars, and many more American lives. Our goal is to destroy al-Qaeda, and we are on a path to do exactly that."

And to those, in his own party who would just pull out now:

"That answer is also clear: we must give Afghanistan the opportunity to stabilise. Otherwise, our gains could be lost, and al-Qaeda could establish itself once more. And as commander-in-chief, I refuse to let that happen."

But this whole trip was also a backdrop. At the weekend the president officially launches his re-election campaign. Foreign affairs will not dominate, but one of the reasons he was elected was to end the wars, to change America's foreign policy.

It is important that he is perceived to have done that in a way that is both patriotic and responsible. There are few better ways than to be seen alongside America's military.

In the past I have never felt Obama was at ease talking to the troops, but here he really got into his stride, lavishly praising them for embodying the best of American values. He defended the 10-year war:

"We don't go looking for a fight. But when we see our homeland violated, when we see our fellow citizens killed, then we understand what we have to do."

"And because of the sacrifices now of a decade, and a new Greatest Generation, not only were we able to blunt the Taliban momentum, not only were we able to drive al-Qaeda out of Afghanistan, but slowly and systematically we have been able to decimate the ranks of al-Qaeda, and a year ago we were able to finally bring Osama bin Laden to justice."

He ended his TV speech talking about building America's future, free from fear, a nation of grit and resilience.

In Bagram, he laid the groundwork to turn his attention fully to the domestic agenda, as he campaigns to remain commander-in-chief.

The lights didn't come on when President Barack Obama emerged, and he was illuminated only briefly by the flash of cameras.

The only one that was celebrated by just about every American, of every political persuasion. It was greeted with glee by some of those who might usually see Mr Obama as weak on national security.

That's not surprising - he is indeed making a big deal out of it.

You know - those creatures that seem like a single block of short-haired muscle, showing too much of the inside of their mouth on the outside, dripping and drooling, but somehow inspiring cooing affection.