Wednesday, April 29, marks President Barack Obama’s 100 day in office, a period of time that newspapers nationwide have been documenting on their front pages. To get a visual perspective of Obama’s time in office so far, we’ve pulled some of these front pages, as well as front pages from Obama’s inauguration, Election Day and from throughout his career.
April 26, 2009: An excerpt from a story in The Orange County Register:
The president has tackled simultaneous challenges during a time of globalization and crisis.
President Barack Obama has crammed more into his first 100 days than most presidents, partly by design but mostly by necessity.
The economic crisis overshadowed much of his campaign agenda. His team structured and executed bailouts of banks and automakers, and worked with Congress to decide how hundreds of billions of dollars will be spent on roads, schools and other projects meant to create short-term jobs while yielding long-term benefit.
The president has taken early action on matters including the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, the Iraq war, U.S. relations with Muslim nations, abortion, stem cell research and auto emissions.
Obama hasn’t grappled with any one challenge as severe as President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Great Depression. But he is juggling more at once, historians say
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April 2, 2009: An excerpt from a story in Newsday:
Obama’s first day in London: Meetings, parties and iPods
The Associated Press
LONDON — He talked nuclear threats with Russia’s president and gave an iPod to the queen.
And that was only the beginning. It was an eventful first day on the world stage for President Barack Obama, launching new arms control talks, placing China ties on fresh footing and calming fears about the ailing U.S. economy — seemingly everywhere, relaxed and smiling all the while.
While wife Michelle attracted breathless attention with every stop, fashionable outfit and sip of tea.
The new U.S. president, in London for Thursday’s high-stakes global summit on the financial meltdown, seemed to be everywhere on Wednesday.
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March 24, 2009: An excerpt from a story on The Baltimore Sun Web site:
Analysis: Geithner scores points, faces more risks
By The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The White House says it does not live or die by the ups and downs of the stock market. But others do. And on Monday, that was good for Timothy Geithner.
With credit markets frozen, a public in high dudgeon and a Congress on a populist crusade, President Barack Obama’s Treasury secretary needed a bit of an uptick. He got it Monday when the Dow Jones industrial average shot up nearly 500 points after he unveiled his private-public partnership to help relieve banks of the toxic assets that have plunged the financial system into its crisis.
But Geithner still has lots to prove — to financial markets, to Congress and to Americans seething over executive bonuses and diminished 401k retirement accounts.
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February 25, 2009: An excerpt from a story in The Washington Post:
‘Day of Reckoning’
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR and ANNE E. KORNBLUT
President Obama offered a grim portrait of America’s plight in an address to a joint session of Congress last night, but he promised to lead an economic renewal that would lift the country out of its current crisis without bankrupting its future.
Striking an optimistic tone that has been absent from his speeches in recent weeks, the president said his stimulus plan, bank bailout proposal, housing programs and health-care overhaul would work in concert to turn around the nation’s struggling economy. And while he bluntly described a country beset by historic economic challenges and continued threats abroad, he said the solution lies in directly confronting — not ignoring — those problems.
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February 20, 2009: An excerpt from a story in the Ottawa Citizen:
Obama, Harper talk war and trade in friendly visit
By MIKE BLANCHFIELD
OTTAWA — As they affirmed a friendship steeped in history, Barack Obama and Stephen Harper presented a sweeping agenda to tackle climate change, right the world economy and fight shoulder to shoulder — at least until 2011 — in Afghanistan.
“I love this country,” the U.S. president said on his first foreign trip, and thousands of onlookers who tried to catch a glimpse of him returned the adoration.
Harper also briefly surfed the wave of emotion as the prime minister gave an impassioned defence of Canada’s long, undefended border with the U.S. — a message aimed squarely at those Americans who still think Canadians are soft on security.
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February 19, 2009: An excerpt from a story in The Arizona Republic:
Obama unveils housing plan in Mesa
By DAN NOWICKI
President Barack Obama delivered hope Wednesday to millions of uneasy homeowners in Arizona and around the country by promising relief from paralyzing mortgages, looming foreclosures and freefalling property values.
Obama hopes to instill confidence in economically anxious Americans under a sweeping $75 billion plan that would let those struggling with monthly mortgage payments refinance at lower rates and help keep folks who lose their jobs from losing their homes, too. The plan would help up to 9 million homeowners nationwide.
“This plan will not save every home, but it will give millions of families resigned to financial ruin a chance to rebuild,” Obama told the more than 1,000 people crowded into Dobson High School’s gymnasium in Mesa.
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February 18, 2009: An excerpt from a story in The Denver Post:
Obama signs stimulus bill
Denver ceremony sets in motion $787 billion in stimulus aid for Americans
By KAREN E. CRUMMY and ALLISON SHERRY
President Barack Obama signed into law Tuesday a $787 billion economic stimulus package, a historic, multifaceted rescue plan aimed at creating millions of jobs, sparking consumer spending and stopping the country from sliding into what he has called an economic “catastrophe.”
Characterizing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as the “most sweeping economic recovery package in our history,” Obama said the bill’s mix of tax cuts, infrastructure projects, energy and education investments, and aid to the unemployed and poor would create or save 3.5 million jobs over the next two years, including roughly 60,000 in Colorado.
“We have begun the essential work of keeping the American dream alive in our time,” Obama said just before signing the bill at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science in front of about 250 people.
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February 12, 2009: An excerpt from a story in the Springfield, Illinois newspaper, The State Journal Register:
Obama’s words suggest he’s thought a lot about Lincoln
By Staff Report
(GateHouse News Service)
“I’m left then with Lincoln, who like no man before or since understood both the deliberative function of our democracy and the limits of such deliberation.” Barack Obama, in his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope
Much already has been said and written about President Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln.
It’s not all Obama’s fault. Being the first black president made the discussion inevitable. But it is also one Obama has more than encouraged.
Two major campaign events at the site of Lincoln’s “House Divided” speech. Being sworn in as president with his hand on Lincoln’s Bible. The inaugural train ride. The “New Birth of Freedom” inaugural theme, a phrase straight from the Gettysburg Address.
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February 4, 2009: An excerpt from a story in the Aberdeen, South Dakota newspaper, the American News:
Daschle withdraws name from health post consideration
By the Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Faced with problems over back taxes and potential conflicts of interest, Tom Daschle withdrew his nomination on Tuesday to be President Barack Obama’s Health and Human Services secretary.
“Now we must move forward,” Obama said in a written statement accepting Daschle’s request to be taken out of consideration. A day earlier, Obama had said he “absolutely” stood by Daschle.
Daschle, the former Senate Democratic leader and an Aberdeen native, said he would have not been able to operate “with the full faith of Congress and the American people.”
“I am not that leader, and will not be a distraction” to Obama’s agenda, he said.
His stunning statement came less than three hours after another Obama nominee also withdrew from consideration, and also over tax problems. Nancy Killefer, nominated by Obama to be the government’s first chief performance officer, said she didn’t want her bungling of payroll taxes on her household help to be a distraction.
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January 30, 2009: An excerpt from a story in the Chicago Tribune:
Impeached Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has been removed from office
By RAY LONG and RICK PEARSON
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Sweeping aside six years of scandal and crippling political infighting with a historic impeachment vote, the state Senate on Thursday ousted one governor for abusing his power and anointed another who built his political career around having no power at all.
Senators voted 59-0 to remove Rod Blagojevich, who walked out of the silent chamber after delivering an impassioned plea for mercy. Within hours they applauded his former running mate and lieutenant governor, Patrick Quinn, who was sworn in as the state’s 41st governor vowing a new course for Illinois.
“The ordeal is over,” said Quinn, long viewed as an unwelcomed outsider by the state’s political establishment. “In this moment, our hearts are hurt. And it’s very important to know that we have a duty, a mission to restore the faith of the people of Illinois in the integrity of their government.”
He replaced a defiant Blagojevich, 52, the first Democratic governor in a quarter century and the first governor in Illinois history to be impeached. After racing back to his Chicago home before the vote could deprive him of a ride home on the state plane, Blagojevich once again said he was the victim of a rush to judgment.
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January 22, 2009: An excerpt from a story in the New York Daily News:
New President Barack Obama quick to put kibosh on Bush policies on Day 1
By KENNETH R. BAZINET
WASHINGTON — President Obama took command on his first full day in the White House on Wednesday, moving swiftly and firmly to steer the ship of state in a dramatic new direction.
From the moment Obama stepped into the Oval Office at 8:35 a.m., he moved at a breakneck pace to undo George W. Bush’s unpopular domestic policies, reach out to foreign leaders and bring more transparency to his administration.
And that was just by lunchtime.
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We have also compiled the following special collections:
