Hardly has there been in modern times, if ever, a leader coming to office with so many people around the world investing so emotionally heavily in his performance - and willing him to do well - as is the case with Barack Obama.

The Obama phenomenon is, of course, deep and complex - as much about the man himself, as a commentary on the perceived failings of United States leadership under the presidency of George W. Bush over the last eight years.

So, in part, it is a call for a return to the moral exercise of power by America.

That part of Obama's appeal is relatively easy to unravel and understand; a global backlash to what most of the world saw as a crass, ideologically driven usurpation and assertion of power by Washington's neocons.

Ideal America

The US, of course, always acted in its best self-interest, but allowed its global power to be guided, though not fettered, by an appreciation of the ideals of multilateralism.

Even if you did not always agree with the policies that emerged from Washington, America's infectious sense of idealism made the world, on balance, sympathetic towards it. It was the nation that you wished yours would be.

More nuanced approach

It was that notion of the ideal America that drove the outpouring of sympathy for the US after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but so vilely squandered by the Bush administration by its callous dismissal of contending viewpoints and its unleashing of the ideology of Regime Change and Pre-emptive War.

Mr Obama's pre-election promise of a return to a more nuanced approach, if not wholesale change, to America's foreign policy is one of the drivers for the global embrace with his presidency that formally begins with his inauguration today.

Mr Obama's presidency will be the first of the truly global and fully digital age. For the first time, the world was intensely involved and engaged in America's political process as participants rather than mere observers.

Global investment

And Mr Obama engaged the world on several fronts because of his charisma, his oratory and a seeming conviction that people, even as they pursue their interests as individuals, can act in accord to be better individuals.

He spoke to Americans, but the message resonated around the world for it appeared as a repudiation of the America that Bush built.

The world listened, too, because in Obama's viable candidacy and ultimate election, America appeared to be coming to terms with contra-dictions between its global person and internal prejudices.

As an African-American of mixed race, Mr Obama looked like much of the world, who hoped that he would appreciate the prism through which we perceive the universe.

His job, our job

But for all the global investment in Mr Obama's presidency, we must remind ourselves that he is first and foremost the president of the United States of America, whose priority today is fixing America's economic crisis.

And while his approach to foreign policy will lack Bush's myopic stridency, Palestinians, for instance, will no doubt recall his two-state solution to their quarrel with Israel includes an a priori position of an 'undivided Jerusalem' as Israel's capital. And his wish to renegotiate NAFTA, taken to its logical conclusion, could be worrisome for countries like Jamaica.

We wish Mr Obama well, but as Prime Minister Golding has reminded us, the job of fixing Jamaica is ours.

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