But behind the scenes, administration officials and the bankers spent considerable time addressing the more charged issue of executive pay.
Behind the scenes, administration officials led by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the White House chief of staff, William M. Daley, and Mr. Obama's budget director, Jacob J. Lew, are scrambling via telephone, e-mails and trips to the Capitol to try to shape the emerging legislation as Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats want.
The scenes the administration created to counter them all backfired.
When Wiseman moves away from the scenes of administration and protest, he heads for the stuff of learned inquiry.
And behind the scenes, the administration engaged in the kind of widespread outreach to city and state lawmakers that was missing in December, averting potential problems early on.
The New York Times recently pointed out that, behind the scenes, the administration is continuing to make steady advances particularly through its control over powerful executive agencies.
Behind the scenes, the administration's planning has already shifted to what to do after an expected fall of the Assad government, and what such a collapse could look like.
Behind the scenes, the administration has told the Pakistanis that if they want Mr. Clinton to visit -- a trip the Secret Service has insisted ought to last only a few hours -- they must set a timetable for a return to democratic elections and some steps toward curbing terrorism.
Throughout the day, in public and behind the scenes, the administration mounted a fierce campaign to portray Iraq's sudden invitation to inspectors -- who have been banned by Iraq for three and a half years -- as a predictable and dangerous delaying tactic, devised by Mr. Hussein in an effort to split the United Nations Security Council.
It has been said that behind the scenes the administration has been on this from the get-go.
