Pivot is a Figure of Speeches

There is an interesting Reuters article today under the headline "As Obama's Asia 'pivot' falters, China steps into the gap".  The report details how America's commitment two years ago to focus on Asia has fallen by the wayside.  What is most interesting, however, is that after five years of president Obama in office, Reuters still does not understand what it means when Obama says that he or America is "pivoting to" focus on something.  A "pivot" in the language Obama uses means that Obama plans to give a few speeches about the subject and then pay no further attention to it.

Perhaps the best known of Obama's "pivots" are the ones where he has pivoted to focus on the economy and jobs.  Obama announced a pivot to the economy on multiple occasions including at least once in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.  Obama has pivoted to the economy so many times during his term in office that he would still be dizzy from all the turning if he had actually followed through.  Instead, all we got when Obama pivoted to the economy were some speeches that rehashed general themes and essentially no new ideas (or even old ideas for that matter.) 

I have to wonder what will come next in Asia.  Will Obama try a "reset" with the nations of that continent.  It did not work with Russia, but at least they already have that red button to use as a prop in Washington.