On February 25, Lee Myung-bak was sworn in as the President of the Republic of Korea. In front of a crowd of some 60,000 gathered, including U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, four former Korean presidents, the presidents of Uzbekistan and Mongolia, and the prime ministers of Cambodia and Japan, having “heard the call” of the Korean people, President Lee presented a brief outline of his goals for his five-year term—streamline the government, revitalize the economy, and lay a foundation for Korean unification. While none of this is a dramatic departure from policies of recent administrations, the new Lee administration is seeking to distance itself from the policies of the last ten years, which he says left Koreans “faltering and confused,” and move instead toward “the age of pragmatism.”