Since we're exactly a month into the Obama Administration, I guess it's time to assess how things are going. In general, I'd say they're going pretty well. Obama has managed to pass a stimulus bill, which is big, but also worthy measures increasing childrens' health insurance and gender pay discrimination. The housing plan seems to be generally thought to be a good idea throughout the interwebs. And most of the administration's team is in place.
There have been some slipups, though. Obviously Geithner and Daschle could have been handled better, and I wish the order of their scandals had been flipped, as I'd be more confident with Larry Summers at Treasury and Tom Daschle at HHS, taking steps toward health care reform. Plus, we wouldn't even be confronted with the possibility of taking Kathleen Sebelius out of Kansas, where she might win an otherwise impossible Senate victory for the Dems next year. Still, I'm guessing Geithner will eventually rise to the challenge, though his bank plan rollout was botched. And I don't really think Obama lost too much ground with his Commerce nominations. The Secretary of Commerce isn't that important, and the Judd Gregg drama was hardly a blip on most peoples' radar screens. The administration could have done a better job initially of selling the stimulus, as it seemed for a while as though Republicans were babbling nonsense for quite some time. Obama stepped up to the plate in time and got it done, and hopefully lessons have been learnt so that things go more smoothly when EFCA and health care roll around.
So far, Obama has been good at sticking to his plans--perhaps too good, in some instances. Clearly Tim Geithner was not prepared to announce his bank plan when he did. Take this with the Afghanistan surge and it looks like the major flaw to watch for in Obama's team is in sticking to the plan for too long--Geithner's announcement was set, and he wasn't going to change the time. And there was a bit of this with the stimulus debate as well. To be fair, though, in the latter instance Obama did adapt when necessary, and if he can do that he will likely have a pretty productive term.
