By his words

Barack Obama is a rock star wherever he goes. This holds true regardless of whether the audience is hard-bitten international correspondents — who gave him a standing ovation after a press conference in London — or fellow world leaders,or even the British royal family. And American soldiers too,even if they apparently voted two-to-one for his opponent. Images of Obama bounding on stage before an excited audience of teenage soldiers holding up mobile phones and digital cameras couldn’t be more different from pictures of his predecessor before staid,respectful military audiences. But,when it came to substance,there was little change: he’s staying the course.

Obama’s tour was a strange mixture of the unchanged and the radical. In Turkey he echoed George W. Bush by calling for Turkey to gain EU membership,saying it is “bound to Europe by more than the bridges over the Bosphorus.” Like Bush,he told Turks America wasn’t at war with Islam — but only he could say “Americans have Muslims in their families or have lived in a Muslim-majority country — I know,because I am one of them.” In Prague,earlier,he gave a speech about the challenges to world peace which contained an inspiring vision of a nuclear-free future which few American presidents would have had the ability and confidence to articulate.

But linking all this was,except in Iraq,the continuing sense that Candidate Obama is still becoming President Obama. Did he indeed talk of a nuclear-free world while DC’s analysts worried about Pakistan’s nuclear weapons? Or tell the adoring Prague audience that “rules must matter” while helpless to ensure North Korea’s compliance? Did he really push Turkey on Europe — just as Europe’s leaders seethed about Turkey’s attempt to block the Danish PM’s accession to NATO’s secretary-generalship? And site his first major speech to “the Muslim world” in a country angry that the US views their country as a liberal Muslim one first and a secular democracy only second? Obama’s eloquence marks him out as a leader of uncommon potential,in an age when leadership is about mindful articulation. With his capacity to re-evaluate everything,the transition now complete at the White House is interesting.