Thus far, Mr Obama's response has been judged rather unsatisfactory: the approach he has taken is the one that worked so well for him during the presidential campaign. He makes yet another eloquent speech that is long on general principle and short on concrete detail. He gives another prime-time press conference – he has held four of these in the six months he has been in the White House, which is as many as George W Bush held in eight years – in which his answers are emotionally engaging, articulate and vague. He visits Blue Dog states such as Ohio and holds town hall meetings with crowds of adoring supporters, who cheer his moving appeals to the social need for expanded health care provision – but who fail to exact from him any specifics about how exactly this is going to work. (Or even about what he himself would find acceptable in the Bill that he is allowing Congress to construct.)