Throughout its first year in office, the Obama administration has completed numerous course corrections across the breadth of American foreign policy. Demonstrating the power of a much-needed apology, President Barack Obama's new-look foreign policy was charming enough to earn him a Nobel Peace Prize. But it struck many observers as a change in style, not substance: Many of Obama's "changes" merely extended or expanded upon those made during the last two years of the Bush administration, following the repudiation of the 2006 mid-term Congressional elections.
Fair enough.
But expecting anything more amid the worst global financial crisis in decades was completely unreasonable. The moment captured the man, and caution -- suitably Keynesian in logic -- ruled the day.