is he a pawn in the game overwhelmed and out of his depth. big question. james fallows joins us now to answer. so what is the answer? >> the answer is he's becoming more of a master. one of the premises i start with is every president comes in flawed in various ways. you and i worked for jimmy carter. we recall that. but they all have limitations. nobody can do all the thing wells the job requires. the question is, do they get better. >> he says he's getting better. >> he says he's getting better. i argue he is. in the way he handles the congress, you can see more sophistication about the zero sum game of politics. he seems to be more comfortable making economic arguments, which were his weak point. and argue in foreign policy, he actually, where he can operate, he's had a pretty wise view all along. >> how do you explain the fact that a guy who i supported as well as so many other people did because he was against the iraq war who seemed like sort of a '60s guy, even though he's much younger, like we all know. had real sensitivity about us becoming too imperialistic.