44, Day 44: No Defending the Defense Contractors

An ongoing log of the daily activities of the 44th president of the United States during his first 100 days:

-President Obama has made Wall Street bankers and corporate executives out to be bad guys in the nation's financial mess. Today, he added defense contractors to the mix. "The days of giving defense contractors a blank check are over," Obama told reporters, singling out cost overruns of a Lockheed Martin project to build a new presidential helicopter fleet as a prime example of the problem. "We will stop outsourcing services that should be performed by the government and open up the contracting process to small business. We will end unnecessary no-bid and cost-plus contracts," he said. Obama took a swipe at the man he replaced, George W. Bush, when he noted that during Bush's eight years, the cost of government contracts had doubled to more than half a trillion dollars.

-Wouldn't it be something if a new president vetoed a bill passed by a strong majority of lawmakers from his own party? That's just what Republicans have been calling Obama to do on $410 billion omnibus spending package to keep the federal government working until the end of this fiscal year. The bill contains $7.7 billion in spending on lawmakers' pet projects, something Obama the presidential candidate would have to stop. Now two Democratic senators--Russell Feingold of Wisconsin and Evan Bayh of Indiana--also are advising the president to veto the spending bill to send a message of fiscal forcefulness. But if you're hoping for a dramatic "not here, not now, no way" moment on this bill, you're probably out of luck. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs says Obama will object to pork the next time around.

-Personnel watch: Knowing full well what can happen when you pick a political crony to head up FEMA, Obama tapped an emergency response specialist for the job. Today he nominated Craig Fugate, the director of Florida's Division of Emergency Management, to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

-Well, John McCain gets prominently featured on the White House website. Too bad for him the other guy won in November. McCain was at Obama's event today on contractor reform and the White House posted a photo of McCain standing behind Obama's left shoulder. We have to wonder what was going through Johnny Mac's head. Any thoughts, leave them below.

Sources: The White House, CNN.com, Reuters, and The Atlantic.