Obama Scores Early Victory of Historic Proportions

At about this point in Bill Clinton's administration, the president and his new team were putting the final touches on an economic plan that had yet to be publicly announced.

That economic plan ultimately passed in August, giving the young president a victory. But his $19 billion stimulus plan -- one-fortieth of the current legislation -- was too controversial to survive the partisan battles.

By the end of three weeks, Clinton had named an envoy to Bosnia and announced rules to limit corporate tax deductions for executive pay. And he had announced a plan to save $35 billion in Medicare costs by cutting payments to hospitals and raising premiums for the wealthier elderly. He railed at the cost of prescription drugs. But none of those issues was resolved within that time.

President George W. Bush was similarly without a major achievement by the week of Feb. 8, 2001, three weeks after his inauguration.

Bush had begun selling his $1.6 trillion plan to cut taxes, and he had announced a plan for a big investment in new weaponry for the military. He was preparing for his first international trip, to Mexico, and gave a speech to military units warning against "overdeployment."

Unlike Obama, by this point Bush had not yet held a prime-time news conference. Like Obama, Bush made an early gesture to encourage bipartisanship: inviting members of the Kennedy family to the White House to see the movie "Thirteen Days."

Bush's efforts at bipartisanship largely failed, but not until after he had launched a war in Iraq and pursued controversial efforts to expand the power of the executive branch.

Obama may yet find that his early legislative success amounts to little in a country where the public has a famously short attention span. And other issues will soon intrude on a White House that has largely tried to postpone foreign policy concerns and other domestic issues.

Obama moved quickly to announce the closure of the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but he said it would take a year to study how to make it happen. On issues ranging from Pakistan and Afghanistan to the war in Iraq, he has ordered commissions or study groups to make recommendations.

And thus far, he has taken a pass on other hot-button domestic issues: He has not succumbed to pressure to take quick action on stem cell research or new unionizing rules, for example.

Obama aides dismiss such points, saying that the deepening economic crisis required the president to focus all of his attention on the stimulus package first.

Emanuel, who served as a senior adviser in Clinton's administration, said, "Having been in two separate White Houses, within our third week, given our set of accomplishments -- well, measure them up."