MEDIA REACTION: Obama's First One Hundred Days; SAO PAULO

UNCLAS SAO PAULO 000257 SIPDIS STATE INR/R/MR; IIP/R/MR; WHA/PD DEPT PASS USTR USDOC 4322/MAC/OLAC/JAFEE E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: KMDR OPRC OIIP XM XR XF BR SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION: Obama's First One Hundred Days; SAO PAULO Media Reaction - President Obama's first 100 days; Sao Paulo April 29, 2009 Title- Obama has made his mark in 100 days of government Editorial in business oriented Valor Economico (4-29) states:"The conventional political wisdom states that a new president should try to concentrate his efforts on a few well defined targets and pursue them one at a time. President Obama challenged conventional wisdom and in his first 100 days put in place a series of measures and plans on all possible fronts. The initial balance is widely positive and we can't say we're not surprised -Obama had said he would do exactly this.....A good start in the Presidency is not a guarantee of success, but increases a lot the chances of obtaining it." Title- Obama and his first 100 days Op-ed in center-right O Estado de S.Paulo (4-29) by Celso Ming says: "No U.S. Chief of State has begun his administration with problems so complicated as President Obama. In regards to his performance in the area of economics, we may make three observations on these first 100 days. The first one regards the way President Obama's administration has dealt with the huge problems in banks......Obama's administration.....decided to better evaluate toxic bonds by promoting a stress test. .....This process is still under way but showed itself to be a more adequate answer than the previous efforts. The second observation is that [President Obama's] electoral speech related to the employment issue will not be accomplished - at least not as it was understood before......Finally, I must say that if Obama did not fail in his first international act as Chief of State [at the G20 Summit], he also was not that successful." WHITE