Obama makes it official that the deficit isn't such a big concern

Many times over the last few years Obama has positioned himself as the one battling against the huge buildup in debt.  Here is one example of his promises:

And yesterday I held a fiscal summit where I pledged to cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term in office. My administration has also begun to go line by line through the Federal budget in order to eliminate wasteful and ineffective programs. As you can imagine, this is a process that will take some time. But we have already identified $2 trillion in savings over the next decade. . . .  Obama's address before a Joint Session of the Congress, February 24, 2009.

Other Obama promises on the deficit are available here.  For example, just last year, regarding the deficit Obama promised: "That should be an incentive for us to act boldly now, instead of kicking our problems further down the road."  Well, that was then, this is now.  From Fox News today:

"What's necessary is to stabilize the debt and then work from there," [Senior campaign adviser David Axelrod] said. "You can't balance the budget in the short term, because to do that would be to ratchet down the economy." . . .

Of course, this Keynesian type justification for government spending is nutty as I have tried to explain.  But if it was this Keynesian argument, why does it apply now and not a year ago?