One Hundred Links
Posted on April 29th, 2009 in First 100 Days |
Photo by Callie Shell, Time
Ok, I admit that I do not have 100 links for the 100 day mark, but I’m off to a good start with this post. There is a lot of interesting material on the internet analyzing and documenting the first 100 days of the 44th President, Barack Obama. I thought it would be more useful to link to some of these sites rather than add my two cents. Maybe I’ll just give my one cent though.
President Obama is vindicating all of us who voted for him. The biggest question people had about Barack Obama during the campaign was whether this guy who rose so quickly was for real–whether he was ready. The results of the first 100 days reflect a very successful start to Obama’s first term when one considers how many problems we are facing. I mean, did Obama really need swine flu added to pirates taking an American hostage, a serious banking crisis, two wars, a major recession, the torture memos, a failing auto industry, global warming, as well as problems in Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, and the Middle East? I can’t imagine a presidency facing such a range of problems starting off better than Obama’s first 100 days.
Now to the links. Here’s a terrific photo journal by Time’s Callie Shell taken throughout Obama’s first 100 days. Time looks at noteworthy quotes from Obama and his administration. An interactive guide is another cool feature at Time’s website. One last piece from Time I’ll mention is this great analysis by Joe Klien, which argues that Obama has had a hugely successful first 100 days, but that we don’t yet know if his policies will work. Dan Balz of the Washington Post writes about Obama’s lightening paced start and his very ambitious agenda. This long piece in the Washington Post takes a look at the lessons learned from the stimulus battle, and the way that the administration changed their tactics afterward. In fact, just check out all the content in the Washington Post’s special section today including a piece that looks at the history of the 100 day benchmark and asks if it’s relevant any more. In a very intriguing piece at Politico, Jonathan Martin speculates on the 10 biggest upcoming decisions Obama may face in the next 100 days. Politico’s Mike Allen writes about how even after 100 days, the GOP still doesn’t know how to deal with Obama. Mike Allen, Jim Vandehei, and John Harris write about what we’ve learned about Obama during his presidency so far. Todd Purdham looks at how the political climate in Washington DC has changed during the Obama era. For all of Politico’s coverage of the first 100 days, check out the magazine and try to get your hands on one if possible–it’s worth it. At the New York Times there’s a fascinating account of the tough decisions Obama faced in dealing with the auto crisis and how this was a pivotal moment early in his term. Another NYT feature: statistical comparisons showing changes that have taken place over the past 100 days.
For some skeptical accounts of Obama’s first 100 days, check out the National Review Online. NRO invites a group of conservative pundits to offer their take on Obama’s first 100 days here. Jonah Goldberg has a particularly scathing review of the early months of Obama’s term, arguing that Obama’s “arrogance” will be his downfall. Another bad review of Obama’s first 100 days comes from (surprise!) Karl Rove, who argues that Obama has “outsourced” policy making to Congress.
2 Responses
Overall, I’m pretty happy with his performance. I particularly liked the Post wrapup that focused on the first real body-slam - the initial failure to pass the economic stimulus package. The recovery from that suggested a President who would work effectively with all the disparite interests embodied in the Congress to get stuff done.
(Although, one could argue that for many years, President Bush was equally effective in getting stuff done by stonewalling and blockading Congress, which usually did what he wanted despite complaining about it. But I digress.)
One note where it looks as if policy didn’t quite go as planned was North Korea’s 5 April space launch. It was an Administration policy to deter North Korea from doing this, and that didn’t work out so well. The response also looked pretty tepid - a week of wrangling at the UN that produced only a Presidential Statement, not a Security Council Resolution. It raises questions to me about whether the President has a strategy in place for advancing U.S. policy interests in east Asia, which requires a really complex balancing act involving Russia, China, South Korea, Japan, etc.
Since I earlier invoked the spectre of the last President, it does merit pointing out that Bush equally had no luck with this. I’ll also cheerfully admit that I have no idea what a real good policy for the North Korea issue would look like, because all the alternatives I’ve seen have major negatives associated with them. Guess this is why he makes the big bucks.
I suppose I could imagine a few ways that Obama’s first 100 days could have gone better, and the response to North Korea may have been one example. It seems that caught the administration flat-footed and they didn’t have a good idea of how to respond. It was especially embarrassing because Obama was giving his speech about nuclear weapons in Prague at about the same time. North Korea policy seems incredibly difficult. Both Clinton and Bush were foiled by Kim Jung-il in their efforts to stop him from pursuing advanced rockets and nukes. So far, Obama seems to be having just as much trouble.