Well the Australian media mogul appears to think that the president made a "very racist comment" and agrees that he hates white people.

But that apparently doesn't make him a racist.

Confused? Me too.

The News Corporation chairman, one of the most controversial figures in the media world, has never minded hitting the headlines in his own right and this week was no exception.

First, in an interview with Sky News in Australia, he chose to back conservative Fox News commentator Glenn Beck.

Remember that back in July, Beck boosted his ratings dramatically when he accused Obama of having "a deep seated hatred for white people and white culture."

Murdoch's reaction is worth printing in full:

"He did make a very racist comment about blacks and whites and so on, which he said in his campaign he would be completely above," Murdoch said of Obama.

And of Beck's remarks: "That was something which perhaps should not have been said about the president but if you actually look at what he was talking about, he was right."

Ah, but hang on a minute. A quick backtrack soon followed.

Murdoch "does not at all, for a minute, think the president is a racist", a News Corp. spokesman then told Politico.com.

Beck's original comments came in the midst of the row about the arrest of African-American Harvard University Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. for breaking into his own home.

At the time Obama admitted he did not know all the facts of the case but it was nevertheless clear the white policeman had acted stupidly. He later apologized.

So who is the racist here, Obama or Murdoch?

A petition launched by colorofchange.org mentioned on The Huffington Post web site demands Murdoch put an end to Fox's race-baiting or openly declare he supports it. "Mr. Murdoch, more and more it appears that Fox's problems with race starts at the top, with you," it writes.

The election of America's first black president was certainly a massive step forward, but perhaps loftier dreams of a new post-racial era might have been a little overblown.

CORRECTS: makes clear colorofchange.org launched petition.

Click here for more Reuters political coverage

Photo credit: Reuters/Fred Prouser (Murdoch), Reuters/Jim Young (Obama)

Toward the end of his first term, his predecessor George W. Bush famously said in answer to a question that he could not think of any mistakes he had made -- a comment which long dogged him as the U.S. overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003 led to chaos in Iraq.

When Obama was asked the same question on Monday, he was quicker on his feet.

"Oh, we make at least one mistake a day," he said with a smile.

"But I will say this, I don't think we've made big mistakes," he told Reuters in an interview in the Oval Office. "I don't think we've made fundamental mistakes."

When asked to give a few examples of errors, Obama regretted how his team had handled some of the early vetting of administration appointments, a reference to problems with personal taxes that knocked some key picks out of contention.

He also mentioned regret over how he had "phrased commentary" on the controversial arrest of a prominent African American Harvard University scholar in Cambridge earlier this year, when he said police had acted stupidly and was later forced to backtrack.

"I mean, there are constant sort of things that I think have proven unnecessary distractions," he said.

"But in terms of the core decisions that we've made to rescue the economy, to move forward on a path for moving our troops from Iraq, on making sure that we've gone through a rigorous process in Afghanistan, to how we have moved healthcare to a place that seven presidents have not been able to get to, I feel very good about our progress."

Highlights from the Interview

For more from the interview, click on the story links below:

Obama warns of strains with China

Obama on Iran nuclear deal

Obama on Copenhagen climate summit

Obama says expect to sign START pact in December

Obama reading Life of Pi

Photo Credit:Reuters/Jim Young (Obama answers questions during Reuters interview in Oval Office)

But these days, that phrase could easily refer to the U.S. government's attitudes towards Afghanistan. Just look at the following phrases from American officials this year.

"We never promised Afghans a perfect democracy," "Afghans have lower expectations in terms of security," "we have to recognise Afghanistan will always remain a poor, conservative land with a low-level insurgency," "our goal in Afghanistan is simply to prevent al Qaeda using its territory to attack us."

All perfectly reasonable in many ways, but hardly a compelling manifesto to win Afghan hearts and minds.

The concern is that there has been such a concerted effort to lower the bar in Afghanistan this year, and to downplay what is achievable, that failure sometimes seems almost inevitable.

The United States convinced Hamid Karzai to agree to a run-off election, but failed to convince him to clean up the Election Commission that had perpetrated the fraudulent first round. That made more controversy almost inevitable.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs just declared Karzai the "legitimate leader of Afghanistan" and that the world could take heart that the laws of Afghanistan had prevailed.

Abdullah Abdullah and many Afghans would surely take issue with that bold statement. The laws of Afghanistan do not allow for elections to be rigged and for perpetrators to go unpunished.

Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies argues that the Afghan decision is the "defining test" of Obama's leadership.

"President Obama will have to take personal responsibility for the outcome of the war in Afghanistan, betting his historical reputation and second term on the outcome," Cordesman said.

The United States, some experts argue, needs to show a clear and unwavering commitment to winning the war in Afghanistan -- and demand a clear and unwavering commitment from the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan to the same goal.

Half-measures will never work. Weakness or a lack of commitment will embolden the worst elements of Karzai's government, encourage the Pakistanis to keep playing both sides, and be exploited ruthlessly by the Taliban.

It isn't just a question of how many troops are sent, but whether there is a coherent strategy that will leave Afghanistan standing on its own two feet.

If the war, as Obama once said, is one of "necessity," then it is surely time for what Cordesman calls "real leadership."

Much as the president likes to find a middle road, there simply does not seem to be one any more in the Hindu Kush.

What do you think is the best route for Obama to take through this potential minefield?

Photo credit: Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl (Afghan man dances in celebration of Karzai's victory),  Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Protest group Code Pink near White House on Halloween)

But these days, that phrase could easily refer to the U.S. government's attitudes towards Afghanistan. Just look at the following phrases from American officials this year.

"We never promised Afghans a perfect democracy," "Afghans have lower expectations in terms of security," "we have to recognise Afghanistan will always remain a poor, conservative land with a low-level insurgency," "our goal in Afghanistan is simply to prevent al Qaeda using its territory to attack us."

All perfectly reasonable in many ways, but hardly a compelling manifesto to win Afghan hearts and minds.

The concern is that there has been such a concerted effort to lower the bar in Afghanistan this year, and to downplay what is achievable, that failure sometimes seems almost inevitable.

The United States convinced Hamid Karzai to agree to a run-off election, but failed to convince him to clean up the Election Commission that had perpetrated the fraudulent first round. That made more controversy almost inevitable.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs just declared Karzai the "legitimate leader of Afghanistan" and that the world could take heart that the laws of Afghanistan had prevailed.

Abdullah Abdullah and many Afghans would surely take issue with that bold statement. The laws of Afghanistan do not allow for elections to be rigged and for perpetrators to go unpunished.

Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies argues that the Afghan decision is the "defining test" of Obama's leadership.

"President Obama will have to take personal responsibility for the outcome of the war in Afghanistan, betting his historical reputation and second term on the outcome," Cordesman said.

The United States, some experts argue, needs to show a clear and unwavering commitment to winning the war in Afghanistan -- and demand a clear and unwavering commitment from the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan to the same goal.

Half-measures will never work. Weakness or a lack of commitment will embolden the worst elements of Karzai's government, encourage the Pakistanis to keep playing both sides, and be exploited ruthlessly by the Taliban.

It isn't just a question of how many troops are sent, but whether there is a coherent strategy that will leave Afghanistan standing on its own two feet.

If the war, as Obama once said, is one of "necessity," then it is surely time for what Cordesman calls "real leadership."

Much as the president likes to find a middle road, there simply does not seem to be one any more in the Hindu Kush.

What do you think is the best route for Obama to take through this potential minefield?

Photo credit: Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl (Afghan man dances in celebration of Karzai's victory),  Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Protest group Code Pink near White House on Halloween)

That's what Kai Eide admitted last week, adding, "what we will try to do, is to reduce the level of fraud."

Is that really what Afghans should be hearing on the eve of this crucial vote -- steal a few less votes this time around please?

The second round of the presidential election in Afghanistan is more about credibility than the actual outcome.

And it is not just the credibility of Afghan President Hamid Karzai that is at stake, it is the credibility of the entire international effort to rebuild the country.

As the International Crisis Group says in a new report, the United Nations was closely involved in planning a first round that ended up being plagued by widespread fraud, and the UN then moved too quickly to declare the vote an unqualified success.

That reinforced the impression the international community was more interested in a rubber stamp than a credible process, and "may have cost particularly the U.S., European Union and UN what little credibility they had left with the public."

The Crisis Group warned a flawed second round would hand the Taliban a significant strategic victory, and went on to recommend steps be taken urgently to reconstitute the tainted Independent Election Commission.

"There are as yet few signs that the U.S. and others who wrestled with President Karzai to obtain his acceptance of a run-off have either the time, political will or resources available to correct the many flaws that led to the fraud."

It is more than likely, it depressingly adds, that earlier missteps will be repeated, deepening tensions in the country and fueling further conflict.

And if anyone thinks that a power sharing arrangement between Karzai and his rival Abdullah Abdullah would be a solution to a fraudulent electoral process, I have only one comment to make -- look at how that idea didn't work in Zimbabwe.

The Afghan people deserve and need the chance to vote freely and in fair elections. The West needs to do everything it can to make that happen.

Photo credit: Reuters/Omar Sobhani (U.N. special envoy to Afghanistan Kai Eide at news conference in Kabul on Oct. 11), Reuters/stringer (Afghan election worker carries ballot box)

The first is that talks with the Taliban, or with members of the fundamentalist Islamist movement, might be worth pursuing more agressively, to advance the day that U.S. troops could begin to leave.

The second is the suggestion the Taliban in Afghanistan might be willing to sever its ties to al Qaeda, or that growing Taliban influence there may not directly threaten the United States.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said there was a clear distinction between "a global transnational jihadist network that seeks to strike the United States" and a Taliban movement whose capability is "somewhat different."

Enticing ideas they may be for a White House seeking an easy way out of an almost impossible situation, but regional experts have been quick to point out some serious flaws.

Right now, even the U.S. military admits the Taliban has the initiative in Afghanistan.

The movement has little interest in talks, still less in ceding anything meaningful, when it believes it only has to stick around for the day that the United States finally wearies of the war and leaves the region.

Nor are large-scale defections likely unless and until the United States regains the initiative in the Afghan war.

Throughout history, Afghan commanders have shown a strong tendency to defect to the winning side. Some of them could be tired of war, and a few could be bought off, but many will be extremely reluctant to join what they see as the losing side.

The second idea, that a resurgent Taliban is not focused on striking the United States, was exploited by Taliban last week, when they said they have no plan and had never had a plan to harm foreign countries. Their only goal, they said, was independence and the establishment of an Islamic state.

It is an idea that many Afghan experts see as dangerous. Lisa Curtis of the Heritage Foundation described White House distinctions between the Taliban and al Qaeda as a "Shibboleth" and incongruous with the facts on the ground.

Bruce Riedel of The Brookings Institution, who helped Obama draw up his original strategy review in March, says it is a "fairy tale" to think the Taliban can be split off from al Qaeda. The bar for determining whether the Taliban are willing to enter into serious talks, he argues, should be whether they are willing to hand over Osama bin Laden.

For eight years since Sept. 11, 2001 the Taliban and al Qaeda have lived, fought and died together in the mountains and deserts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Many intelligence analysts say ties between the two groups have grown stronger.

Several times in the past few years, the Pakistani military has signed truces with the Taliban movement, sometimes in exchange for a promise not to harbour foreign fighters from al Qaeda.

The truces, like one signed in the Swat Valley in February, were often sharply criticised by the United States, seldom lasted long, often left the militants stronger, and did nothing to bring al Qaeda's leaders closer to justice.

Whether the United States should send more troops to Afghanistan remains a very difficult question to answer. But to expect too much from reasoning with the Taliban would, experts say, be ignoring the lessons of history and experience.

Photo credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque (Obama speaks about elections in Afghanistan at White House in August), Reuters/Carlos Barria (U.S. soldier in position as smoke rises from artillery fire against Taliban militia in Afghanistan in August)

But many people, including influential actors within the administration and several readers who left comments on Monday, are advocating a different approach: pull out, and leave Afghans to their own devices. This blog looks at Plan B.

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"The Russians were in Afghanistan for 10 years. The Americans have been here for seven, and we will send them home in just three more years".

That was how Mullah Abdul Salaam Zaeef, the Taliban's former ambassador to Pakistan, described the movement's message to the Afghan people when I met him in a drafty and bare Kabul room in March.

Zaeef, who was imprisoned for years in Bagram and Guantanamo, says he is no longer a member of the Taliban but is now acting as a mediator between its leadership and the Afghan government.

But his comments underline one of the West's biggest problems in trying to regain the momentum in Afghanistan.

All the talk in the West is of an exit strategy, of when troops can start to be withdrawn.

And what better time for President Barak Obama to announce a drawdown of U.S. forces than during the next presidential campaign in 2011/2012 -- concidentally a decade after they first arrived in Afghanistan?

The Taliban have spotted the West's indecision and are exploiting it, reminding wavering Afghan villagers that they, not American troops, are there for the long haul.

As U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal said in his stark assessment of the problem this week, there is a "crisis of confidence among Afghans".

"Further, a perception that our resolve is uncertain makes Afghans reluctant to align with us against the insurgents".

That makes it all the more urgent for President Barack Obama to make some extremely tough decisions soon. What choice should he be making?

Some people are beginning to ponder the previously imponderable. Should the West cut its losses and run?

Perhaps we should admit that more troops will only make things worse, that nation-building in such distant and foreign terrain is impossible, that southern and eastern Afghanistan will forever remain a Taliban stronghold.

In this scenario, the West's goals would be more limited.

Try to bring some members of the Taliban into the political process, and train the Afghan army to fight the remainder.

At the same time, the U.S. could pin al Qaeda's leaders down with "precision" airstrikes and keep them on the run to stop them from planning major attacks on the West.

The strategy has its fans, and its attractions. But would it work?

Once the West leaves Afghanistan and gives up on the idea of nation building, there is no going back. The opportunity to create a more stable Afghanistan will essentially have gone.

Southern and eastern Afghanistan might start to look even more like Pakistan's tribal areas. A weak central government would essentially have given up on the idea of controlling significant swathes of its own country.

Another problem, as the experience in Pakistan has proved, is that airstrikes are never "precision". They kill civilians, and inflame anti-Western passions even further, steadily strengthening the hands of radicals.

They may have claimed the scalp of Baitullah Mehsud, but have yet to take out al Qaeda's top leadership.

Remote bombing is tempting in the short term, but does it work as a long-term strategy.

And nation-building might be tough, but is the West really prepared to face the consequences of an ignominious withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the morale boost that would provide for al Qaeda and its allies?

For more Reuters political news, click here.

Photo credit: Reuters/Goran Tomasevic (U.S. Marines patrol in southern Afghanistan)

What is less encouraging is the fact there seems little political appetite around the globe to fix the mess.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal's report is a stark and honest assessment of the war in Afghanistan.

A failure to send more troops within the next year and regain the initiative "will likely result in failure," he said.

Everyone knows that time is running out to get Afganistan right, with political support eroding fast in the West but the Taliban dug in for the long haul and getting stronger all the time.

McChrystal is also right in saying that more troops and more resources are not enough in themselves, and pointing out many of the errors of the past eight years.

Among  them:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

    - corruption and abuse of power by the Afghan government
    - Western troops, who lack an understanding of Afghan society, employing tactics which have alienated ordinary Afghans
    - and the failure of aid efforts which “too often enrich power brokers, corrupt officials or international contractors and serve only limited segments of the population”.

I was in Afghanistan as Reuters bureau chief in from early 2002 until 2004, and what is depressing is that many of those mistakes were starkly apparent right from the outset.

Airstrikes which killed innocent civilians are now being acknowledged as counterproductive, and there has been a lot of attention of the failure of the country's central government.

But there has perhaps been too little attention on the failure of the aid effort, which Ashraf Ghani lambasted as "dysfunctional and lacking accountability" when I met him on my last visit to Kabul in March.

Ghani, an unconvincing presidential candidate but a globally recognised expert on rebuilding failed states, argued that the amount of money NATO spends every month, more than $20 billion, could educate five generations of Afghans.

What has been spent has far too often been wasted.

There has also been too much attention paid to the central government in Kabul -- presidential elections were never going to solve anything -- and far too little paid to improving local governance outside the capital and even bringing democracy down to the villages.

But how to fix things now?

It is not going to be easy because fixing Afghanistan will be a lot harder now than it would have been in 2002, when Western intervention and troops were largely welcomed in the country.

Perhaps the only way to turn things around is to change perceptions about who is likely to be the winning side.

There may be a parallel with the way the global economy seems to have been pulled away from the brink of depression by massive government intervention, which helped to restore confidence among ordinary people.

In a sense, the only way to change perceptions was to throw the kitchen sink at the problem, to get ahead of the curve.

In Afghanistan, the danger is the West is permanently behind the curve.

Obama's Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy announced in March might have been enough in  2002 but looked and sounded inadequate to many people in 2009.

As McChrystal himself said: "inadequate resources will likely result in failure. However, without a new strategy, the mission should not be resourced".

So the question is this.

Will more troops come in time to make a difference? Will they be accompanied by a massive surge in developmental resources to Afghanistan, a radical reform of the way aid is administered and delivered, by a serious effort to improve security and local governance outside Kabul and a convincing public commitment to stay the course?

Because if they aren't, the West will always look like it is chasing the game.

For more Reuters political news, click here.

Photo credit: Reuters/Goran Tomasevic (Man looks toward Kabul from old cemetery)

The U.S. side, determined to be more respectful and less confrontational, tiptoed around the sensitive issue of China's currency, avoiding any public appeal for an upwards revaluation in the yuan.

There was a passing reference to the rights of China's ethnic and religious minorities, but no sign the other side would take any more notice of foreign interference in its internal affairs than it has in the past.

Not was there any evidence the Chinese and Americans were any closer on issues from climate change to how to deal with countries like North Korea and Sudan.

The Chinese, though, seemed less circumspect, more confident even in their public statements. Washington, they argued, should rein in its budget deficit and refrain from flooding the world with dollars.

They are, after all, holding more than $800 billion in U.S. Treasury debt, and don't want to see the value of those investments fall.

And when you have such a big customer, you better listen to them, as the Wall Street Journal pointed out this morning.

Obama wants to see the two countries as partners, not rivals, for the 21st century, not always seeing eye to eye on everything but sharing common problems and common interests.

It was a beguiling vision, and China experts say his less confrontational approach may have more chance of success with a country not used to being told what to do.

But the question that must be asked is how seriously will the Chinese take American advice? Is talk of a real partnership between two countries with vastly different cultures just wishful thinking?    

For more Reuters political news, click here.

Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Obama speaks at opening of U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Washington)

Extend healthcare coverage to 47 million uninsured people without rationing coverage to the rest of the country, while at the same time actually reducing healthcare inflation.

Finance the whole thing without hurting the middle class or pushing up the budget deficit. Achieve one of the biggest reforms in American history, something that so famously eluded his Democratic predecessor Bill Clinton -- and get it all done without any pain.

Millionaires might have to pay more tax, and insurers might be kept "honest" by a government-run insurance option, but what's surprising about this debate is that more people aren't squealing.

When he was asked this week what the American people might have to sacrifice to get all this through, Obama had what might seem an unlikely answer.

"They're going to have to give up paying for things that don't make them healthier," he said.

Reuters correspondent Steve Holland wrote an analysis  about the master salesman's struggle to sell this particular reform to the American people.

Kevin Sack in The New York Times wrote a piece which nailed the public's reaction pretty well too.

Is painless healthcare reform really possible? Or is someone somewhere not telling us something?

The beauty of Obama's strategy so far is that he has kept everyone "inside the tent." By keeping his own cards close to his chest, he has kept everyone else in the game. But is it time for Obama to show a little more of his hand?

Click here for more Reuters political coverage

Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed (Obama listens to five-year-old boy at healthcare meeting in Cleveland)