McMahon: Shanghaied

The town hall in Shangai that President Obama conducted this week certainly seemed different than our recent ones. It seemed somehow, foreign, to have a town hall and not see posters of the president with a Hitler moustache or a hammer and sickle.

The polite audience was made up of university students and was near the beginning of an Asian tour that will deal with the global economy, the environment and human rights among a variety of subjects.

It would be just great if, when the president returned, he had something truly substantive to say about those issues and the economy and Afghanistan and nuclear threats. Something solid and visionary not just eloquent.

I've said before, I like and respect Barack Obama, but, while I am fully aware he hasn't spent a full year in office I would really like to see something finished. Sometimes he reminds me of an exceptionally talented, smart, small school quarterback who finds himself in the NFL surrounded by old pros telling him he doesn't know how to read the playbook.