44, Day 71: Onto the Global Stage

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

-President Obama flew to London for what is shaping up as the toughest diplomatic test of his young tenure: a Group of 20 summit seeking ways to end the global economic slump. European leaders, notably Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, have already said they will resist American efforts to increase and coordinate government spending to boost economic growth. They prefer to focus on increasing and coordinating regulation of financial services companies, like those blamed for the current recession. After the G20 summit Thursday, the president will attend two others: a NATO security summit shared among the French city of Strasbourg and the German cities of Kehl and Baden Baden, and a European Union summit in Prague.

-Another day, another website. The Obama administration's abiding fondness for the World Wide Web found another avenue of expression today with the official debut of FinancialStability.gov. The Treasury Department says the website is designed to provide taxpayers with "information about the Obama Administration's efforts to stabilize our financial system." We say today is the "official" debut because Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner actually introduced the site back on February 10, though there wasn't much on it at the time. In any case, FinancialStability.com is not to be confused with Recovery.gov, which is supposed to tell taxpayers where their bailout money is going, or any of the many other websites -- www.makinghomeaffordable.gov or www.healthreform.gov or http://www.whitehouse.gov/strongmiddleclass/-- that the administration has fired up in its first three months.

-Before boarding Air Force One for London, the president signed an omnibus public-lands bill that allows for another 2 million acres of federal property to be set aside as wilderness. It will also expand the wild and scenic rivers program by more than 1,000 miles.

by Mark Stein

Sources: Associated Press, The New York Times, the Treasury Department, the White House.