When Barack Obama began his run for the presidency there were a limited number of things he wanted to emphasize on his to-do list. He wanted to stop the war in Iraq, provide health care and begin the transition away from carbon-based energy system to a renewable one. His overall theme of "change" meant that the initiative behind these priorities would be kept away from narrow "special interests." Even before his inauguration, mission creep, the campaign and the exigencies of unfolding events have begun expanding Obama's agenda. Events tend to do that. How well his administration balances focus with response will determine its success.
Conditions have dictated that Obama will take office in the midst of a terrible financial imbroglio, a severe recession that could become something worse, two hot wars in addition to an amorphous "war on terror," horrendous budget and trade deficits and a period of rock-bottom American credibility, frayed alliances and trampled civil liberties. Other impending crises threaten to appear or escalate. To the normative Israeli-Palestinian problem you can add India-Pakistan, Russia and its former empire, Zimbabwe, Somalia, Sudan, Korea, China-Taiwan or Tibet to the list of international hot spots that could flare out of control at any moment.
Plenty of Administrations get hijacked by events and never seem to get back on track to their initial priorities. Think of Kennedy's idealism getting diverted into Berlin and Cuba. Johnson began his Great Society and got mired in Vietnam. Nixon sought Detente but also had Vietnam, stagflation and then Watergate. Reagan faced economic woes and Iran-Contra. Bush the elder said he would be the education president. Instead his most memorable actions were in the Gulf War before he was brought down by a recession. Clinton's domestic agenda was constantly overshadowed by peacekeeping missions. Bush II's promised "humble" domestically-oriented concentration was largely replaced by a focus on war and terrorism.
It will be most difficult for a new president coming in during times like today's not to be caught lurching from one crisis to the next, putting out fires while not really delivering the "change" he and the electorate wanted to effectuate. It seems as though the transition team is being rather amazingly thorough. They are doing everything from keeping tabs on everything Bush deregulates so they can initiate reversals to devising massive programs of infrastructure and green energy construction. They want to reposition the military, initiate several new foreign policy approaches, bring efficiency to the medical services industry and change its insurance basis, rework education, institute a new public service rubric---the list goes on and on.
This is why the transition team is moving so urgently with appointments. This will either be one of the best organized and most effective presidencies of all time or it will be one of the most overextended. There are so many things that need fixing or changing, and this team seems intent on acting on them all at once. The only way to accomplish that legislatively is to hit the ground running and present plans in total before effort and attention are diffused and distracted by the inevitable pressure of the crisis of the moment and by politics.
When Obama takes office his first Hundred Days could make Roosevelt's look timid by comparison. On the one hand, if the opposition can tie things up in procedural hurdles or find a soft spot to attack (as happened with Bill and Hillary Clinton's health initiative) the entire effort could quickly bog down. If not, and a friendly Republican or two can be found in the Senate, we could see some truly remarkably sweeping changes. Obama will be trying to lever Congress by mobilizing public support, continuing his grassroots campaign on a more or less permanent basis. It will be fascinating to watch.
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