Obama's second chance

Perhaps we should not have been surprised, as I was, that Time Magazine should have named President Obama as its Person of the Year yesterday.

Winning a second term of office in the United States of America is almost never easily achieved but Barack Obama made it even more difficult and got very close to ruining his own prospects with his lamentable performance in the first TV debate with Mitt Romney. Furthermore, the Republicans were entitled to draw attention to the list of promises that Obama made four years ago but has not delivered. Indeed, with the single exception of the tracking down and killing of Osama bin Laden, it is difficult to think of a major success that, by normal standards, would justify Time's decision.

The reason for its choice may well be similar to what led the Nobel Peace Prize Committee controversially to honour President Obama in 2009 -- an instinctive feeling that here was someone different from the usual run of American and world leaders who might just change the way political and diplomatic business is carried on if given enough encouragement to do so. In the United States and in international relations Barack Obama still has time to “make a difference” in a second term of office. Gun regulations and Middle East troubles have already presented themselves as needing just such an innovative approach.