44, Day 63: How Many Legs Does This Stool Have?

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

-"As I've said before, there are a number of legs in the stool in the economic recovery," President Obama told reporters after getting his Economic Daily Briefing today. One leg is the $787 billion stimulus package. Another is a housing foreclosure plan. A third was to improve liquidity in secondary markets. And a fourth leg came today, with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's plan on banks can get bad assets off the books. ... So that's four legs for the stool, but we have to believe there are more in the works, like health care reform or shoring up Social Security. It's becoming a somewhat awkward stool.

-Nearly a week after St. Patrick's Day and the president is still thinking green. Today, he said $59 billion in stimulus funds and $150 billion in money from the federal budget would be spent to promote a "clean energy future." Obama vowed to tackle the problem of U.S. dependence on foreign oil and to double the nation's supply of renewable energy.

-Obama's appearance Sunday night on CBS' 60 Minutes was seen by more than 16 million viewers. The interview was delayed nearly an hour because of a longer-than-expected NCAA basketball game.

-Personnel watch: The president today named a former executive at Freddie Mac, David Stevens, to head the federal housing commission. If confirmed by the Senate, Sevens' formal title will be assistant secretary at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

by J. Jennings Moss

Sources: The White House, the New York Times, the Associated Press, the Washington Post,