Obama at the G-10 summit

The G-20 summit seems to have gone well. President Obama made an excellent impression, including with reporters. Apparently they gave him a standing ovation. Reporters? A standing ovation for a politician? First time for everything, I guess. Why were they so impressed?

“He actually answered the questions he was asked,” says one startled Asian reporter.

The FT has the best coverage I've seen so far. I didn't find much about this on the normal blogs, like TPM or even Andrew Sullivan. Dan Froomkin at the WaPo has a nice rundown, with the headline "World Community Organizer."

One important thing that is already fading from view is that there was supposed to be some tension at this summit around the issue of how to handle the economic crisis. The Europeans, particularly the French and Germans, want tighter regulations; the Americans and British want more stimulus. Looks like there was a little bit of both. The NY Times editorial board wasn't thrilled, but neither did they condemn the results. There were no diplomatic dustups, everyone got along fine, Obama proved his popularity has some grounding, a trillion dollars and change was committed to the IMF. Let me repeat: there were no diplomatic dustups, and everyone got along fine. For a one-day summit, that's pretty good. Maybe the crisis was not resolved to perfect satisfaction. But progress was made. It's a start.