oneworldtalk

The defining Moments :

- Closing Guantanamo by July
- Banning torture practices at CIA jails
- Restoring federal funding for embryonic stem cell research
- Gender discrimination legislation
- Changing the priority of America's war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan

The circumstances of Obama's first 100 days - the steepest downturn since FDR's Great Depression - invite the comparison of Obama to the man who rates as one of the top three US presidents.

In FDR's time, it manifested as a yearning for small-town community values and for much greater levels of government help; in Obama's time it has brought a yearning for change, for a more responsible, moral form of capitalism. Both men recognised that the moral pendulum of America was about to swing and outlined to the electorate bold plans to deliver on a new society.

But there are differences, too, historians say. "Roosevelt was trying to deal with an immediate and very deep crisis, and then to implement longer-term reform. We refer to it as the three Rs: relief, recovery and reform," says Professor Robert McElvaine, a professor of history at Millsaps College, in Jackson, Mississippi. "Obama is facing more obstacles than any other president since FDR, but they are not as deep nor has the crisis been running for so long."

As the economy has worsened in the first three months of this year and credit markets remain sclerotic, complaints are growing from Wall Street to Washington that Obama is doing too much, spreading himself too thin.

Almost in the same breath, though, there has been criticism that he has ducked hard decisions, such as postponing a commission on the social security system in the face of Democrat opposition, or not pushing ahead with a ban on assault weapons after another spate of mass shootings.

The New York Times wrote this week: "His early willingness to deal or fold has left commentators, and some loyal Democrats, wondering: where's the fight?"

He might be dealing with two of the Rs now - relief and recovery - but he is determined to use his recovery plan to drive the third R: reform - in financial markets, in health care, on climate change and on education.#

"Never allow a crisis to go to waste," as Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is so fond of saying that it has become the administration's semi-official motto.

"Barack Obama wasn't elected to stand guard over the status quo; he was elected to change it," the President's chief political strategist, David Axelrod, said in an interview this week.

virtually all of Obama's political capital has been invested in winning congressional support for his economic measures, which carry the seeds of his larger agenda. He won Congress's support for his $US787 billion ($1.1 trillion) stimulus package, the biggest in American history, in 20 days.

He then did what Bush's treasury secretary, Henry Paulson, had failed to do, and put $100 billion toward schemes to help home owners hovering on the brink of foreclosure or burdened with high rates as a result of subprime loans. That won him kudos with Congress, although there remains a sullen resentment on both sides of the aisle about the bank bail-out overall.

Obama played that too, expressing outrage about executives at banks and other companies who took government help and then paid themselves bonuses.

The rest of the funds are being used to try to purge toxic assets from banks' balance sheets - and on that score, there are many doubters about Obama's plan for public-private partnerships which will buy up these assets at a discount and punt on their value improving in the future.

Simon Johnson, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloane School of Management and former International Monetary Fund chief economist, says the administration has let the banks have too big a say in the measures to deal with the deep-seated problems within the banking sector and beyond.

Obama's campaign rhetoric of bridging the partisan divide of US politics crashed into reality early, too. A Republican senator, Judd Gregg - Obama's second attempt at a commerce secretary - pulled out, saying Obama's plans were too radical and he could not support them, undermining the president's concept of a team of rivals.

But the most serious problem has been the initially weak public performance of Geithner. Geithner falteringly outlined the first version of the toxic assets plan with barely enough detail to explain for the markets to make sense of it. Then came the furore over executive bonuses at American International Group (AIG), which raised questions about Geithner's knowledge of the impending bonuses and why they weren't stopped. It threatened to undermine the very commodity that Obama had worked so hard to stockpile during the transition: confidence in his youthful administration.

On the international stage, fate has been kinder to Obama, giving him a relatively clear run to pursue his goal of pressing the reset button on US relations with the rest of the world. For the most part, the 100 days has not presented any serious challenges that require quick judgment and tough decisions on the part of the President.

But later, despite the bonhomie with European leaders, President Obama failed to secure any substantive commitment from NATO of more troops for Afghanistan.

The real measure of Obama's success in the first 100 days is really still to come.

Meanwhile, as he has elaborated on his plans, the sharp partisan divides seem only to have got sharper.

Obama also has a strong force in his favour - a public that still supports and believes in him, Ornstein says.

Not many presidents have been able to boast an approval rating of 64 per cent after three months in office.