WASHINGTON — Barack Obama walked the halls of the Senate for four years, and in his earliest decisions after the presidential election assembled a coterie of key advisors with deep roots in Congress.
He is the first president elected directly from Congress since John F. Kennedy -- leading to high expectations that he would know how to handle congressional egos.
So it came as a surprise that Obama's first real workweek in Washington as president-elect was marked by collisions with his former colleagues, including some who helped him win the White House.
In naming a CIA director and in shaping his massive economic stimulus plan, Obama managed to rankle some lawmakers from his own party by stepping crosswise of their procedures, prerogatives and personal feelings.
Now, as the incoming president moves into the details of governing and begins in earnest to try to revive the ailing economy, the question is whether last week's ruffled feathers have been smoothed and whether there are more tensions ahead.
Some clashes could be the inevitable stumbles of a new relationship. Others may reflect contending visions of how to do business, involving basic differences between the Obama viewpoint and what the president-elect refers to as the Washington way.
"I do see a culture clash," said Dee Dee Myers, a White House press secretary for President Clinton. "For a campaign that got kudos for being as well-run as Obama's, they probably thought they were going to come to Washington and continue with that successful framework. In many ways they have. But there's also a lot of acclimating that's going on too."
The week began with Obama antagonizing some influential members of Congress with his surprise choice of Leon E. Panetta, a former Clinton White House official, to head the CIA. Days before the nomination was official, word reached Capitol Hill, where Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) was beginning her tenure as the first woman to head the intelligence committee.
She said she hadn't been consulted on Panetta and was thinking about opposing his nomination. The departing committee chairman, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), also raised concerns about the choice.
It was an inauspicious start to the week, coming with word that the Obama transition team was readying a massive tax cut component to his economic stimulus package to lure Republican support for the broader plan.
