Obama's first 100 days

Ninety four days into Barack Obama's first term of office and the media has already begun the obligatory progress report of the new president's performance.

The Obama era began with a speech on a cold day in Washington as the nation's 44th president explained the difficult work ahead. "Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real, they are serious and they are many," the president said. "They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this America: They will be met."

That seems like ages ago. Since that time, the president has dealt with more difficult issues and challenges in 3 months than any new president since Franklin Roosevelt.

Perhaps that was because the president spent a good deal of his time in those speeches focused on the troubles in the economy. With the country losing 650,000 jobs a month and the nation mired in recession, the president pushed Congress to approve a $787 billion stimulus package that provided funding for new projects, unemployment assistance for those out of work and tax cuts for middle class families.

The stimulus bill passed with no Republican votes in the House of Representatives and only 3 GOP votes in the Senate. Similarly, the president's $3.6 trillion FY 2010 budget moved through Congress with mostly partisan support.

Some of the problems were of his own making. Obama stumbled a bit when his cabinet nominees Tom Daschle and Bill Richardson both had to withdraw their nominations. And he seemed to be in trouble with the nomination of Tim Geithner to be Treasury Secretary. Geithner survived, but the others did not. The president also did something few others have done recently -- he apologized and admitted he had made a mistake in pushing for Daschle's confirmation.

Ironically, the one prominent cabinet official who seemed to generate less controversy was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who had publicly feuded with Obama in the heated 2008 primary campaign. While many feared that she would not fit into Obama's "team of rivals," she seems to have settled comfortably into her job in Foggy Bottom.

Secretary Geithner has probably had more public missteps than any other cabinet official. He failed to inspire confidence when he announced the first outline of his bank bailout proposal in February, but Wall Street warmed up to the Treasury Secretary when he provided more details the following month.

Geithner and economic adviser Larry Summers became the administration's point men in dealing with a range of economic hot button issues, not the least of which was insurance giant AIG's decision to pay $165 million in bonuses to top employees after receiving $170 billion in U.S. government aid. After first saying there was nothing the administration could do about the contracts, the White House quickly realized the public's anger and reversed course.

After conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh publicly admitted that he hoped Obama would fail, the White House conveniently picked a fight with Limbaugh, elevating the divisive figure into a spokesman for the opposition. So too with Dick Cheney, the former vice president who was virtually invisible during his own administration now seems incapable of remaining quiet in attacking the Obama administration. When Newt Gingrich and Michael Steele stepped into the fray, the White House had 4 very controversial opponents to use to define the Republican Party.

Although he insisted he planned to keep his pledge to lift the ban on gays in the military, the president avoided Bill Clinton's 1993 mistake of allowing the media to get him bogged down by the issue. Obama also reversed Bush administration policies on stem cell research and abortion, but largely managed to avoid many of the controversial culture war debates of the 1990s. Perhaps it was a sign of the times that there was no great outcry from the right even when the states of Vermont and Iowa legalized same-sex marriage in Obama's first 100 days.

Although the first 100 days, so far, have been dominated by domestic issues, a few high-profile international crises have also tested the new president. The president committed thousands of new troops to fight in Afghanistan, leading the media to characterize the conflict there as "Obama's war." Obama also sought to build ties with Iran, to convince it to halt its nuclear program, and to persuade the country to release an American journalist accused of espionage. But Iran's president fueled the flames of distrust when he attacked Israel at a UN conference on racism that the U.S. boycotted.

The president traveled to Europe for a G 20 summit with world leaders that became Obama's coming out party on the world stage. He met with leaders from dozens of countries, had an audience with Queen Elizabeth (and gave her an iPod), and made a surprise visit to see the troops in Iraq.

Obama also ordered the closing of the detention center at Guantanamo, released controversial CIA memos that outlined the use of torture in the Bush administration, met with Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega at the Summit of the Americas, and loosened up travel restrictions for Cuban-Americans who want to visit their homeland.

In the end, however, it was a successful military operation in Somalia that may have most defined the new president's first 100 days. When three Navy SEALs took out three Somali pirates, it ended a week-long standoff that could have defined the president's first 100 days as a failure if the operation had gone poorly.

But it wasn't all work for the Obamas. The family welcomed new first dog Bo, set up a fancy swing set on the South Lawn and hosted Stevie Wonder and Earth, Wind & Fire in the East Room of the White House, just for fun.

The Obamas also found time to host the annual White House Easter Egg roll, create a vegetable garden and volunteer in the local community. And the president himself kept entertained by accurately predicting the NCAA basketball tournament victor (North Carolina) and appearing on "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno. Obama even managed to dodge prolonged criticism after referring to his bowling skills with an unfortunate joke about the "Special Olympics."

It was a dizzying 100 days, and it's not even over yet.

The president has spelled out an ambitious agenda to reform energy policy, health care and education. And he's still working on the bank crisis, the credit crunch, homeowner relief, immigration policy and changing the tone in Washington.

No president in my lifetime has set out such an ambitious agenda in his first 100 days in office, and if he succeeds in accomplishing just half of the goals he has set for himself, he will go down in history as a transformative political figure.

But he has much more to do. And miles to go before he sleeps.