WASHINGTON - President Obama's first week in power was a whirl of activity, but the orders and pronouncements flowing from the White House had little to do with the central mission of his presidency: overhauling health care, weaning the nation from foreign oil and fixing the economy.
Obama's early moves carried huge symbolic value. On his first full day he called in top military advisers and pushed them for a faster timetable for withdrawing combat troops from Iraq. He announced that he would close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay. And he rolled out new policies meant to curb the power of lobbyists.
But those actions had another purpose: Clearing some issues off the table for the time being so that Obama can turn his attention to thornier projects, such as health care, that have confounded past presidents.
"He is definitely buying time and space," said Peter Hart, a Democratic pollster.
Obama's initial moves have a certain political utility. Everything he did tracked campaign promises to break sharply from the Bush administration.
And he helped to defuse emotionally charged issues, even if the practical effects won't be felt right away, if at all. Guantanamo, for example, may not be shuttered for a year while the Obama administration decides the fate of its 250-some inmates. Obama's timetable for an Iraq drawdown calls for all combat troops to be removed by mid-2010.
Obama is signalling through these moves that change "isn't going to happen at this instant moment. But it's not something that I'm sidestepping or re-evaluating now that I'm commander in chief," Hart said.
What is more, Obama's actions set a new tone that the rest of the world can't help but notice.
"An order from the White House sends an immediate message," said the Rev. Richard L. Killmer, executive director of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture.
On Thursday, Obama announced that he was banning interrogation techniques that opponents described as torture. "Messages have real, concrete effects. Just by issuing one, he can re-establish relations that we have with a large part of the world," Killmer said.
Though he cast his new ethics rules as the strictest ever, Obama has left wiggle room for lobbyists he feels he needs.
On Wednesday, he announced a new policy barring lobbyists joining the government from working on issues for two years that were the focus of their advocacy work.
