Ministry. I sat nervously eyeing my BlackBerry for news reports while the man next to me, a Brazilian businessman, quizzed me on the positions that Obama had taken on ethanol subsidies during the 2008 campaign. The whole scene spoke to an absurdity in the office of the American presidency—Obama sat at the head table, carrying out his duties, promoting American business in a country of more than two hundred million people, while the vast machinery of the U.S. government, on Obama’s order, was preparing to rain down bombs on a country of seven million.
