On Thursday, both sides asked six governors -- three Democrats and three Republicans -- to help them crack one of the most contentious issues: who will control Medicaid, the federal government or the states?

CNN: Budget impasse continues amid mix of pessimism and hope

He's got quite a few nuts to crack--the biggest, ironically, Iranian expatriates who control the pistachio industry in America.

FORBES: Nutty

But the image it successfully projected throughout much of the first 15 months of the uprising -- that of a government in control -- has begun to crack.

CNN: Syria: Battle for the cities