Obama's Team Sticks to Its To-Do List

The relentless cycle of leak, announcement, and update is fast becoming a hallmark of the Obama Administration, and the pace seems to be accelerating as officials at the Treasury, the White House, and regulatory agencies expand existing programs and add new ones to the list. But look past the breathless headlines, and another pattern emerges: For the most part, Administration officials are doing what they said they would. That parallels the Administration's record so far in other areas as well — Politifact, the Pulitzer Prize-winning St. Petersburg Times Web site that tracks how well Obama keeps his campaign promises, figures he has already kept about a quarter of them, while a little over half of the rest are "in the works," where some factors are in the hands of Congress or otherwise out of the Administration's control. The strategy could provide the kind of reassuring, stabilizing message the economy has been craving: The government has a plan and is sticking to it.