WASHINGTON — Turns out Barack Obama is the bill of

WASHINGTON — Turns out Barack Obama is the bill of goods America thought it was buying.

Little about Obama in his first year as president has come as a shock. The cautious, cerebral, enigmatic man who sought the White House is largely the same one who occupies it. For all the history-changing wonder of the election of the first black president, most of the surprises have come from events, not his approach to them.

From the beginning, with its inaugural excitement, friendlier majorities in Congress than any chief executive since Lyndon Johnson, two wars, a warming planet and economic challenges unrivaled since the era of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and to the end, with fractious partisan sniping, a dramatically fallen approval rating and his first major victory still to come — Obama then is basically Obama now, only grayer and more tired.

But 12 months’ worth of watching the president put his signature style to work governing, instead of campaigning, provides a crisper picture. So, what have we learned? For one thing, that he’s a master of nuance with a “but” in his approach to nearly everything.

Ten observations:

Hates labels

Obama promised a post-racial, post-partisan, post-ideological presidency. While that theory earned him votes, some seeing it in action, such as the liberal Institute for Policy Studies, now more critically call it the “have it both ways” presidency. Could it be that his “Yes, we can” campaign has morphed into a “When we can” administration?

Obama has pursued a radical agenda: fix the economy while attacking long-neglected, related problems such as health care, climate change and education. End one war, overhaul a second and remake America’s image in the world, too.

First reaction isn’t his best

When incendiary comments by black minister Jeremiah Wright surfaced during Obama’s campaign, he underestimated and mishandled the issue until it threatened his White House chances. He finally calmed the fuss with a speech on race regarded as a slam dunk.

That pattern of near-failure followed by 11th-hour rescue has repeated itself in the White House. Think economic stimulus. Think health care. Or beer summit — another racial tempest gone wrong and then right.

Just recently came another demonstration of Obama’s iffy first instincts. The bombing plot to bring down a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day drew no appearance by the vacationing president for three days, in hopes that a low-profile wouldn’t overly elevate the incident and encourage other would-be terrorists.

Prefers not to react immediately

Ever the risk-averse, studious lawyer, Obama doesn’t act on his gut but on information — reams of it. He collects all the facts and pokes holes in all the angles. Asked early in the year why his outrage at exorbitant bonuses at bailed-out insurer American International Group was so long in coming, Obama snapped at the reporter: “I like to know what I’m talking about before I speak.”

Ever scripted, he has been known to use a teleprompter even in news conferences.

He’s the king of reviews. On the Guantanamo Bay military prison, war, the Fort Hood shootings, a new missile defense system, cybersecurity, urban policy, the White House gate-crashers and more, a thorough review is his preferred out-of-the-gate response.

Has a cold-fish problem

He can sometimes appear aloof, cool, emotionally distant.

He’s warm in private settings — approachable and funny. But standing before the public on a critical topic, whether it’s corporate bonuses or Somali pirates, he can display a tin ear for the tone people want. Sometimes even when he says he’s mad, he doesn’t look it.

Wears the job easily

For all his youth and governing inexperience, Obama stepped almost seamlessly into the most powerful post in the world. Outsiders could not detect rookie jitters. Insiders reported him unfazed by the office. “I feel surprisingly comfortable in the job,” said the 44th president a mere two weeks in. “I’m good at this,” he told People magazine just over a week ago.

What could appear arrogant in the campaign looked surefooted in office. Still, there are times when he seems not to understand — or purposely not to harness — the vast power he has assumed.

Favors candor, contrition

No Reaganesque “Morning in America” here. Remember Obama’s “I screwed up” acknowledgment after the felling of former Sen. Tom Daschle’s nomination to be health secretary over tax problems, perhaps the most memorable utterance of his first year? It came from the president who had to be persuaded to start talking rosier about the economy to give Americans a little hope. Or the one who said “the buck stops with me” for intelligence failures that led to the attempted airline bombing on Christmas.

And from the leader who told Europe, on European soil no less, that America “may not always have the best answer” or that “all parties have to compromise, and that includes us.” This humility on the world stage — welcome abroad and often at home, too — has been a hallmark, part of Obama’s goal to emphasize collaboration with allies over orders to them.

Likes to teach

The constitutional scholar and law professor, a son of a cultural anthropologist, was known as an impressive orator during the campaign. He has turned into something more like a guest lecturer in the White House — the wonkish professor-president.

Laying out his policies, say terrorist interrogations at the National Archives, the economic collapse at Wall Street’s Federal Hall, his Afghanistan approach at West Point or the U.S. intelligence apparatus in the State Dining Room, he often seems more interested in educating than persuading.

Relishes the art of the deal

Who knew? Obama has proved an enthusiastic and adept mediator, at home and overseas.

The president conducted shuttle diplomacy between France and China at a London economic summit, overcoming a dispute over tax havens. In Strasbourg, France, he helped settle a dispute over the next NATO secretary-general. In Istanbul, he worked on the sidelines to normalize Turkish-Armenian relations. His seat-of-the-pants diplomacy helped produce a limited accord at the climate change meeting in Copenhagen.

As the health care inches toward completion, Obama has presided over marathon White House negotiating sessions to wrangle over sticky provisions.

Both hawk and dove

He ditched a new missile defense system that was threatening Russia’s cooperation in critical areas. He seemed to give more than he got in a much-watched November visit to China. His administration is trying the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind and others in civilian New York courts. He banned torture and launched a criminal investigation into harsh questioning of detainees under the Bush administration. He has mostly abandoned the phrase “war on terror.” Former Vice President Dick Cheney calls him weak on security.

But there’s a tough side of the ledger, too. Obama is ramping up the war in Afghanistan, increasing unmanned drone strikes against suspected terrorists inside Pakistan, and battling Russia over a new arms-reduction treaty. He’s crafting a tough new package of penalties against Iran and continuing a variety of Bush-era terrorism policies opposed by the left.

‘The bubble’ bothers him

Obama has called it the “weird fishbowl,” the nitpicking media scrutiny and 24-7 company that come with every presidency, and particularly his. There are Secret Service protectors who go everywhere he does. The ever-present entourage. The news cycle that never sleeps and has tentacles in every corner of the Internet. The unique global phenomenon of his and his family’s popularity. In Obama’s book, it adds up to a lack of normalcy, almost no chance for spontaneous living.