4/29 Roundup: 100 Days, Specter Spectacle, Sharon Jones on Obama

Leader: 100 Days, 100 Nights

- Today is Barack Obama's 100th day as our President, and so I offer you a run-through of all the 100 days analysis on this Hallmark holiday:

- Chris Cillizza of The Fix counts winners and losers in the first 100 days.

- Time's reporters all grade Obama.

- Newsweek's Jon Alter says Obama is in league with FDR and LBJ.

- Politico's John Feehery says we've seen more talk than action.

- Joe Klein of Time Magazine has a top-to-bottom assessment.

- Newsweek's Howard Fineman says the next 100 days will be the real test.

- GlobalPost reporters gather reactions to the first 100 days from around the world.

- Carla Marinucci and Joe Garofoli of the San Francisco Chronicle on Obama's outreach.

- The editors of the NY Times look at how Obama compares to his predecessors.

- Fareed Zakaria says Obama has accomplished enough to make any president envious.

- Business Week finds corporate leaders give Obama mostly good grades.

- Slate's Chris Beam braces for the GOP's continued failure in the next 100 days.

- The Guardian's Mike Tomasky writes that Obama has transformed US politics.

- Politico's Jonathan Martin looks at 10 decisions Obama will face in the next 100 days.

Politics

- Arlen Specter has switched sides of the aisle, becoming a Democrat after 44 years as a Republican. By joining the Senate Democrats, he puts Dems within reach of a filibuster-proof 60 votes, which they'll have once Al Franken is seated. Facing a likely primary challenge from the right, he would have faced an uphill battle to gain the Republican nomination in 2010, and will face much better prospects as a Democrat.

- John Dickerson calls this a pretty good 100th-day gift to President Obama, and Dan Balz wonders if the GOP will sleep through this wake-up call.  With moderate Republicans an endangered species, and the GOP sliding ever further right, sensible centrists like Specter are certain to find more to like in the Democratic Party.

- Specter's fellow moderate Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine pens an op-ed in the NY Times lamenting that it didn't have to be this way-- that the Republican Party need not demand ideological fealty at the expense of any diversity of thought.

Economy

- The FT's Martin Wolf writes that fixing our financial systems is just the first step toward economic recovery:

The overhang of debt makes deleveraging inevitable. But it has hardly begun. Those who hope for a swift return to what they thought normal two years ago are deluded.

International

- Swine flu has now appeared on four continents, and illnesses in the US are appearing to be more severe than originally thought. The disease killed its first American yesterday-- a young child in Texas. A vaccine may still be months away.

- In a seemingly significant, if symbolic move, the Chinese government indicated that it would drop its objection to Taiwan's participation as an observer at the World Health Assembly.  This is certainly a step toward improvement of relations, though it's less clear whether it's a step toward or away from reunification.

- The Pakistani military successfully pushed Taliban militants out of Lower Dir, and took aim at those militants still within the Buner district.

New From NDN

- Michael Moynihan looks at progress on clean technology in President Obama's first 100 days.

- Tracy published a full description of the event we'll be hosting here on May 5th, looking back at the first 100 days of the Obama presidency.  We hope you'll be able to join us!

One More Thing

- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's campaign slogan translates as "We Can." Sound familiar?

- Last, do you know Sharon Jones? She's great.  She has a song that I think might be about Barack Obama ("100 days, 100 nights to know a man's heart... And a little more before he knows his own"):