No president since before Barack Obama was born has ascended to the Oval Office confronted by the accumulation of seismic challenges awaiting him. Historians grasping for parallels point to Abraham Lincoln taking office as the nation was collapsing into Civil War, or Franklin D Roosevelt arriving in Washington in the throes of the Great Depression.The task facing Obama does not rise to those levels, but that these are the comparisons most often cited sobers even Democrats rejoicing at their return to power. On the shoulders of a 47-year-old first-term senator, with the power of inspiration yet no real executive experience, now falls the responsibility of prosecuting two wars, protecting the nation from terrorist threats and stitching back together a shredded economy.Given the depth of these issues, Obama has little choice but to "put your arm around chaos", in the words of Leon E Panetta, the former White House chief of staff who has been advising his transition team.Obama had concluded that he could not follow the example of Roosevelt, who refused to get involved in prescribing economic medicine between his election in 1932 and his inauguration, advisers said. At the same time, they said, Obama understands he should not overstep his bounds and wants his inauguration to mark a clean break from the past.Obama has been conferring with Congressional leaders about a possible package of $100 billion for public works, unemployment benefits, winter heating assistance, food stamps and aid to cities and states that could be passed during a lame-duck session the week of November 17. He has also been talking regularly with Treasury Secretary Henry M Paulson Jr about the economic environment and hopes to work closely with him during this interim period as Paulson makes decisions about how to invest the $700 billion given him by Congress to shore up the financial system.Even as Obama focuses initially on the economy, he faces a perilous moment abroad. Terrorists have exploited transitional moments in the West to launch attacks in Britain, Spain and even the United States, where al Qaeda first tried to blow up the World Trade Center just weeks after Bill Clinton took office in 1993.The task awaiting Obama arguably transcends this economic program or that foreign crisis. He takes over a nation weary of the past and wary of the future, gloomy about its place in the world, cynical about its government and desperate for some sense of deliverance. Nearly nine of every 10 Americans think the country is on the wrong track, the deepest expression of national pessimism in polling history.
