Waiting for Obama

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, November 7, 2008

Reduced to obsolescence -- and fighting off emotions -- President Bush is apparently joining the legion of Americans waiting for Barack Obama.

Jeff Zeleny and Jackie Calmes write in the New York Times: "With the global economy on a knife's edge . . . the financial markets, foreign leaders and even the Bush administration are looking to Mr. Obama for signs of how he will manage the crisis. . . .

"The Obama camp is feeling pressure from the administration, according to several people familiar with the situation, specifically from Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., to 'co-own' the bailout program, which remains unpopular among voters despite a broad consensus that it was essential to avert wider economic collapse.

"The Treasury has reserved office space, so far unused, for Obama representatives. . . .

"In responding, Mr. Obama must strike a delicate balance between cooperating with an unpopular president whose policies he campaigned to change, and the inclination to wait until he takes charge in two and a half months to prescribe his own remedies. . . .

(More here.)