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WASHINGTON

Obama spent his first few days in office rolling out an orchestrated series of executive orders intended to signal he would take the nation in a different direction from his predecessor, George W. Bush.

Yet he wrestled with fresh challenges at every turn, found some principles hard to consistently apply and showed himself willing to be pragmatic, at the risk of irking some supporters who had their hearts set on idealism.

When Obama wandered into the White House briefing room Thursday afternoon hoping to make small talk with reporters, he was instantly confronted by an unwelcome question: Why was he waiving his tough restrictions on lobbying for a Pentagon nominee? The president brushed it off, saying he would not return “if I’m going to get grilled every time I come.”

His plan to build bipartisan consensus around an economic package ran smack into discontented House Republicans. When he ordered the prison at Guant

“That is an enormously complicated situation,” Axelrod said Friday in an interview, adding: “Obviously, you can’t solve problems overnight. But what you can do is signal a sense of motion, a sense of ferment and activity and direction. And I think that he is doing that.”

All around Axelrod, there were signs of a new White House coming to life. His name was tacked onto his door on an 8-by-10-inch computer printout

In the Oval Office next door, Obama was receiving a briefing from his chief economics adviser, Lawrence Summers. When the meeting was over, the vice president, Joseph Biden, wandered by, chatting up people in the hall.

Contradictions emerge

Throughout the campaign, Obama was something of a political Rorschach test; he was not required to make tough executive decisions, so people could see in him what they wanted. His first few days as president, though, have given the first hints of how he will run his administration.

“I think you will see a presidency that’s less about hard-core ideology and more about setting bold strategic objectives and setting out how we are going to get there,” said John Podesta, who ran Obama’s transition.

That has given rise to some contradictions.

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