100 Days: Rating the Media Takes on Presidents

Robert Schlesinger

There are two competing, contradictory bits of conventional wisdom regarding a president's first 100 days in office that are often connected: "A president's 100 days are a critical window into the character of his administration," but "historians argue that it is too short a period of time to draw meaningful conclusions."

Decrying the 100-days benchmark has become as hoary a Washington ritual as divining a president's future from that span. So I perused a sample of news reports covering presidents' first 100 days from Eisenhower through George W. Bush to see what enduring wisdom could be drawn from the media's first drafts of history. (I started with Ike because, while the 100-days standard dates to Franklin Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman was spared the test, probably because of the circumstances of his ascension.)

The results echo the intelligence analysts' dilemma. Looking back, you can see data points that could have been connected to forecast subsequent events, but how are you supposed to sift them from the chaff? Early assessments of Eisenhower noted his understated ("spasmodic," as the Washington Post put it) leadership style but also considered the handling of now forgotten issues like a resolution condemning "secret agreements" (having to do with lingering GOP fears about Yalta).

Nevertheless, the press's 100-days evaluations can provide a valuable benchmark for judgment.

The 100-days chronicles have problems. The first is the future's inscrutability. The stories on Jimmy Carter didn't include Iranian extremism any more than those on George H.W. Bush mentioned Iraq or the early judgments of George W. Bush did al Qaeda.

And these appraisals are snapshots. Sometimes they are presidential portraits unrecognizable at term's end. A Chicago Tribune columnist wrote that Richard Nixon enjoyed a "cordiality" with the media that "can be expected to remain for some time, because the new administration is scrupulous in observing the right to know." Similarly, George W. Bush still seemed a "uniter, not a divider" in his 100-days report cards rather than the polarizing "decider" he became. The New York Times reported a moderated tone and compromises in his top priorities. Congressional Quarterly talked about his pragmatic flexibility. Speaking to the nation on his 99th day in office, Bush bragged: "We are learning we can make our points without making enemies." (Not all signs were off: "Bush has disappointed--even alarmed--more people abroad than he has pleased," Newsweek noted.)

Some 100-days accounts capture only one aspect of a president. The media thought Ronald Reagan "scored a personal success in his presidential debut and may turn out to be a better Washington politician than a Hollywood actor," National Journal reported, though it found "confusing foreign policy signals coming out of the administration."

Another danger of 100-days write-ups is the trend trap: the belief that current trends will continue. So stories on John F. Kennedy's first days in office were colored by the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the Soviets orbiting a man around the planet. "He has taken a severe blow in Cuba, and the whole Kennedy concept of moderating the cold war now seems in question," the Christian Science Monitor reported. JFK is remembered for his success the following year in the Cuban missile crisis, for setting the country on a path to the moon, and for his landmark speech in 1963 in which he declared that "if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity." He learned from his stumbles.

Press judgments on a "100 days" cannot themselves measure such adjustments, which come from experience. But they can serve as tools years later for judging these changes--or lack thereof. "There remain suggestions that Bush has described no clear purpose and that his own identity remains indistinct, ill-defined," the Associated Press reported about George H.W. Bush. Those suggestions linger 20 years later. Similar insights into what would ultimately prove fatal problems in the Ford and Carter administrations can be found in some of the 100-days dispatches.

It is as a measure of subsequent change that the 100-day benchmarks have significance: Successful presidents adjust and are able to learn from their mistakes and grow in office. Presidents who let early problems fester for four years rarely get four more to correct them.

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Updated on 04/27/09: An earlier version of this article contained the incorrect text.