We’re just about a week away from Barack Obama’s 100th day as President of the United States and the air is tense with anxiety. Journalists from around the world are flying in to Washington to mark these “FIRST 100 DAYS” and there hasn’t been this much excitement since 1999, when we were all buying up all the water we could get our hands on and hoarding electric generators in preparation for January 1, 2000, at the turn of the millennium. Yes, the media is acting like a bunch of Girl Scouts counting down to “cookie day.” But can someone— ANYONE— explain why this all matters???
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Next week, Barack Obama will have been President for exactly 100 days. Well “Whoop-dee-friggin-Doo!” Why is this some crucial milestone? Is 100 somehow better than, perhaps, 99? Do we mark, say, a new love relationship after 100 days? Are we not supposed to criticize a new relationship prior to 100 days, but anytime thereafter it’s OK to unleash holy hell on it?? What is the significance of any of this, and why is every 24 hour news channel going “coo-coo-for-cocoa-puffs” over this unusual and odd custom?
`According to Senior White House advisor David Axelrod, there is no real significance to marking 100 days in office. “You come to Washington at a propitious time” said Axelrod. “There is a custom, an odd custom, the journalistic equivalent of the Hallmark holiday, called the 100-day review. I know it came about in the Roosevelt era and it stuck, but the truth is it is very hard to evaluate any presidency after one hundred days. Our work has just begun.”
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Originally, the 100 day period was meant to be a “honeymoon” of sorts for a new administration to get its bearings, try out a few new ideas, make a few mistakes, and not get brow beaten for it in the process. So IF this 100 day rule carried any true weight or meaning, the opposition party would have honored it, RIGHT? Well, they didn’t! President Obama never received any sort of “honeymoon” since Republicans began criticizing him and his ideas from nearly his first moments in office. It started with the critique that Mr. Obama did not “honor” the dignity of the Oval Office by permitting himself and others to enter it without wearing a suit jacket (it was later discovered George W. Bush often permitted the same, disqualifying the argument). And the criticisms continued all the way through last Sunday’s political talk shows, with former VP Dick Cheney taking yet another swipe at the young administration for doing things all wrong (as if the Bush/Cheney administration somehow did everything all “right”). So this “FIRST 100 DAYS” rule has been an unhonored farce from the beginning.
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But for anyone who has been keeping score with some sort of “Obama Report Card,” just pay attention to the words of David Axelrod, who said “I don’t think a president has ever confronted a more difficult set of circumstances maybe since FDR in entering the presidency. We face an economic crisis of, as you know, proportions we haven’t seen since that time. We have challenges in foreign policy, two wars and significant challenges around the world that few presidents have faced coming into office… But I think we have made tremendous progress. The president passed an economic recovery package of historic size and scope and ambition in order to get our economy moving again. But he did it according to a set of principles, not just things to get the economy moving in the short run, but investing in things that will make us a stronger economy in the long run”.
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So, next week marks the “FIRST 100 DAYS.” Yippee! Anyone taking off work? Buying your family and friends “FIRST 100 DAY” gifts?? Or is anyone else like me and not really giving a damn about “100 DAYS,” but rather more concerned that our President utilizes his “FIRST FOUR YEARS“ to get this country back on track??? Hmmm…
i never got the whole 100 day mark either. but who cares? Obama has done more in 100 days than Bush coulda done in a 100 years.its still stupid tho