Barack Obama may be the best exponent of American public diplomacy since Benjamin Franklin, inspiring a newly hopeful attitude about the United States in many parts of the world. But beyond the president himself U.S. public diplomacy lacks coherence and impact.

"Uncle" seems almost condescending — I don't mean it so.

One of the mysteries of our day is that American hard power has been so ineffective for so many years in apprehending Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri), leaving the group free to use public diplomacy to speak to Muslim publics — especially to a Pakistani nation that distrusts the United States.

Today, a tale about what journalism has become, with implications for all those concerned with the weakening firewall between “news” and “message.”

It’s a tale of two Posts — Washington and Huffington.

A revolution is underway in the news media, one neatly illustrated by how these two competitive news gathering organizations — the Washington Post and Huffington Post — have themselves made news in recent days. And, I’ll warn you, if you don’t already know, it’s the Washington Post that comes out looking bad.