The Hot File

Excerpt from Joe Klein’s TIME piece on Obama’s 100 Days :

The idea that a President can be assessed in a mere 100 days is a journalistic conceit. Most presidencies evolve too slowly to be judged so quickly. Roosevelt set the initial standard in 1933, overpowering Congress and passing a slew of legislation to confront the Great Depression during his first three months in office. “Lyndon Johnson had two 100-days periods,” says historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, “one after the Kennedy assassination and another after he was elected in 1964.” Indeed, Johnson’s legislative haul dwarfs anything before or since; he quickly got Congress on track to pass landmark civil rights bills and create Medicare, among other things. “And you have to say that Reagan had a significant 100 days,” Goodwin adds, “because he represented a clear break from the policies of the past, even if his signature legislation — the tax cuts — didn’t pass until after the 100 days were over. But I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything like Obama since Roosevelt.”