The Risk of Being the 'Deadline President'

On taking office, President Obama wasted little time on the path to becoming what the New York Times calls "the Deadline President."

One of his first acts was to sign a highly-publicized executive order to close the detainee prison at Guantánamo Bay within a year, a deadline he now concedes he will not meet. Later, he called on Congress to pass energy legislation and financial regulatory reform by the end of 2009. He wanted to sign a health care overhaul bill by year's end, but more recently scaled that ambition down to the Senate getting its work done by Christmas. He warned Iran to make progress in negotiations on its nuclear program before 2009 ran out, and looking ahead, he has set a July, 2011 date for beginning to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

Political Science Professor Charles O. Jones pointed out the risks of this approach, reminding the Times of the rule articulated by the late presidential scholar Dick Neustadt: "If you are going to set a deadline then you'd better meet it. Otherwise, the judgment will be that you made a mistake."

An immediate risks, the Times says, is that "if Congress continues to ignore Mr. Obama's timetables, lawmakers will not believe he is serious when he sets new ones."