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.

Few stories have caught the scope of attention and imagination of both global public and press as President Barack Obama’s recent foray into the complicated landscape that is the Middle East.  Coverage and commentary was ubiquitous in all corners of the globe in the run-up to the president’s visit to Riyadh and Cairo and his speech at Cairo University. 

An unyielding belief in strength over suppleness — constantly deploying the full force of both the sword and the mouth — may lie at the core of that old warrior Sen. John McCain's criticism that President Obama has been too passive in reacting to Iranian protests against that country's controversial elections.

U.S. government international communicators shifted into max overdrive from both sides of that protective "firewall," to report on what may become known as one of the great White House public diplomacy efforts ever: President Obama's June 4 address from Cairo, Egypt to the Middle East and beyond. The speech was unquestionably both a news event and a public diplomacy activity, so there are times when the mythical "firewall," to protect the independence of government international journalistic endeavors, may be ethically breached. This was one of them.

Some early analyses of President Obama's historic address to the Muslim world in Cairo today have noted that some of Obama's professions of unity with the Muslim world merely echo words President Bush said after 9/11. The implication is that deeds, not words, matter.

It may come to be known as the “new beginnings” speech. The speech that Barack Obama delivered today at Cairo University was probably not his best speech, but it may be his most important and most widely disseminated ever. The U.S.