Waiting for Obama

Reduced to obsolescence -- and fighting off emotions -- President Bush is apparently joining the legion of Americans waiting for Barack Obama.

Jeff Zeleny and Jackie Calmes write in the New York Times: "With the global economy on a knife's edge . . . the financial markets, foreign leaders and even the Bush administration are looking to Mr. Obama for signs of how he will manage the crisis. . . .

"The Obama camp is feeling pressure from the administration, according to several people familiar with the situation, specifically from Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., to 'co-own' the bailout program, which remains unpopular among voters despite a broad consensus that it was essential to avert wider economic collapse.

"The Treasury has reserved office space, so far unused, for Obama representatives. . . .

"In responding, Mr. Obama must strike a delicate balance between cooperating with an unpopular president whose policies he campaigned to change, and the inclination to wait until he takes charge in two and a half months to prescribe his own remedies. . . .

"Having promised change, Mr. Obama is not eager to join hands with Mr. Bush on the bailout."

Lori Montgomery and Kendra Marr write in The Washington Post: "In hopes of calming panicky markets, Obama is scheduled to meet Monday with President Bush at the White House, a meeting intended to showcase their desire for a smooth transition. Obama will not attend a global economic summit to be held in Washington next weekend, a senior official said, a sign that the outgoing president and his successor are still negotiating the parameters of what will be a delicate relationship over the next two months.

"So far, Bush has given little indication that he plans to allow the election results to alter his course in the final months of his presidency.

"'He doesn't change his principles or his policies,' White House Press Secretary Dana Perino told reporters yesterday."

Ben Feller writes for the Associated Press: "The transition is a delicate dance in which the White House keeps the president-elect in the loop, and even solicits his input, but the decisions remain solely the president's.

"On Monday's discussion list for the current and future presidents: the financial crisis and the war in Iraq.

"'We face economic challenges that will not pause to let a new president settle in,' Bush told a gathering of hundreds of employees from the presidential bureaucracy, gathered on the back lawn of the White House.