"It is still early in the Obama era," said Michael Gerson in The Washington Post, but the president's deferral to the Democratic congressional leadership on the initial shape of the stimulus package is a bad sign. It made him look like a pragmatist with no real "guiding vision."
Republicans thought they were scoring points by "bad-mouthing" Obama's economic plan, said Bob Herbert in The New York Times. But "Obama is like a championship chess player, always several moves ahead of friend and foe alike." So while his opponents were busy trashing him, Obama focused on the best stimulus he could achieve, and how to get there.
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