Obama's First 100 Days

Talk about a bad starting hand. The next president, Joe Klein writes in Time, will be the first since FDR to “face the prospect of neither peace nor prosperity.” Relegating McCain mostly to parenthetical asides, Klein suggests that Obama will avoid shaking up national security for stability’s sake and focus on the economy. Obama’s number one priority will be to put us on the track for an alternative-energy economy, which will take the form of an infrastructure and stimulus package in the $300 billion range. “It’s what used to be derided as big-spending liberalism,” and in order to overcome skepticism, Obama will need to make good on his campaign pledge for an “Infrastructure Bank”—a bipartisan board of five governors who would judge and approve all major projects. Such an institution would threaten congressional business as usual. “Will he be willing,” Klein asks, “to spend his political capital on this relatively obscure notion?”