Change You Can Barely Keep Up With

It's getting nearly impossible to summarize a day in the life of President Obama, let alone a week. But what a week this was! His address to Congress, stating the case for the agenda he mapped out, was a huge hit. More than 52 million Americans watched it on TV, and immediately afterwards, his poll numbers shot up into the stratosphere. His support for change is now broad as well as deep.

A few days later he announced a budget that further propelled his agenda for change, with a special emphasis on health care. It dropped accounting tricks that masked the true spending, and it looked forward as far as a decade down the road. "None of this will be easy or certain, " Newsday concluded. "But by rejecting stealth spending and honestly confronting costly choices about the nation's problems, Obama has challenged us all to do the same."

It was a speech and a budget that defined the Obama presidency--of conviction and long-range strategy, and of--surprisingly surprising to some--doing what he said he would do in his campaign.

If that wasn't enough, there were new initiatives and information on coping with crisis in the financial sector, announcement of the plan to end the war in Iraq, new policies on a range of issues, and one new cabinet appointment with another expected tomorrow. If this seems like a lot of change, it is: in sheer activity, the Obama administration has topped every previous one, by more than double.