SCOTT SIMON, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Scott Simon.
This week, President Obama signed the stimulus package, and he got to work promoting the plan to stem the tide of home foreclosures around the country. The president also took his first international trip. He went to Canada. Meanwhile, the state of California closed a $42 billion gap in its state budget, and the leader of Israel's Likud Party was asked to form a coalition government. NPR senior news analyst Dan Schorr joins us now.
Hello, Dan.
DAN SCHORR: Hi, Scott.
SIMON: And, you know, it used to be you gave presidents a hundred days to be judged.
SCHORR: Yeah.
SIMON: But this is a month after President Obama took the oath of office. What's your reading so far?
SCHORR: Well, he's done, as they say, as well as can be expected. He got this very important piece of legislation through the - the thing was going to provide stimulus. He managed to come out with some program to help with the house owners and their foreclosures. So about what you might expect from him, they pretty well have gotten. So, so far so good, I suppose.
SIMON: Let me ask you about his traveling. He signed the stimulus bill in Denver. He talked about the anti-foreclosure program in Mesa, Arizona. The week before, he was in Florida, Virginia, Indiana and Illinois to sell the stimulus package. We've even gotten some e-mails suggesting for somebody who's in favor of sparing the environment, this is an awful lot of travel on Air Force One. What do you make of this trip?
SCHORR: What I make out of it is that the president clearly likes to be engaged in a permanent campaign. He gets wonderful receptions when he speaks to crowds. He doesn't have to worry there what he has to worry about here a little bit, about bipartisanship and so on. On the simple level of going out to the country, he finds he can do no wrong, and he clearly likes it. And so I think we'd better sit still and forsee our president wandering back and forth a lot.
SIMON: And does it help him make his case to Congress? Does it keep that approval rating…
SCHORR: Well, obviously, he's talking over the heads of Congress to the constituents, and every place that he had been, I'm sure that there are dozens and dozens of e-mails and so on from constituents going through members of Congress there. It is a time-honored way of trying to exert pressure on Congress - is to go to where the constituents live.
SIMON: And of course, the president's first foreign trip was to Ottawa, Canada, and in fact, in recent years, there have been some questions about the Canadian-American relationship. What was accomplished there?
SCHORR: Well, first of all, it is now more or less a tradition that the first foreign trip that a new president makes is to Canada. If he had not gone to Canada on this first trip, that might have been trouble. Having done that, he did all the necessary things, he said all the nice things. He thanked them for sending troops to Afghanistan. It was the kind of a trip that you do no harm.
SIMON: California - I want to ask you about that. State legislators worked out a budget after a 45-hour session. There were these memorable, obviously, pictures of state legislators falling asleep at their desks, or trying to.
SCHORR: They had 45 hours without being able to go out and eat anything. I guess they would fall asleep at their desk.
SIMON: Well, they did it to close a $42 billion deficit. How did they close a deficit of that size, and what impact will it have on California?
SCHORR: Well, you know, the Economist magazine says that California is ungovernable, and they almost showed it. And they finally managed to get this - the changes in the budget. It's the traditional way - more taxes, less spending; those are the things. Or to put it in a very simple way: California cannot afford a textbook for every kid.
SIMON: I want to ask you about Israel because the leader of the Likud Party, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been asked to form a coalition government. You understand this process very well. Being asked to form a government doesn't mean it gets formed.
SCHORR: As well as one can. You're invited to form a government, and you have to - you have a government which rests on having a majority of the 120 members of their parliament. You can do it alone if you have it. He didn't have a majority, so you have to do it by plurality. He has been already offered the cooperation of Avigdor Lieberman, who is a ultra-right wing person there, and he could form a majority, but it would be a tilting-towards-the-right majority; Netanyahu - Bibi, as he's known there - would likely get a big coalition of various parties. So if he sticks to that, he may have trouble. If he's willing - if he wants to have a generally right-wing government with Lieberman, he could probably get that, but I suspect he doesn't want it.
SIMON: Secretary of State Clinton has been making her way across Asia, Japan, Indonesia, South Korea. She arrived at China, her last stop, on Friday. Any central message? What's she been doing?
SCHORR: Her central message is she does what the secretary of State does. There are - in China there are issues of human rights. You mention it and then you go on to talk about things that you agree about. You say, what are we going to do about North Korea, which is a common problem. This is what you call the pragmatic people. We have our problems. They'll be there. Places where we can cooperate, we will cooperate.
SIMON: Finally, Dan, does it look like Roland Burris is going to be the senator from Illinois for much longer?
SCHORR: Well, you know, the White House has suggested to him that he might want to think otherwise. I think the pressures are beginning to mount. I would not dare to predict what this guy is going to do because he would fool me any time. But when your president indicates that he wants you out, you might really think about what price you want them to pay for your resignation.
SIMON: NPR's senior news analyst, Dan Schorr, thanks so much.
SCHORR: Sure thing.
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