The Insanity of the 100 Day Assessment

President Obama has now been the President for 100 days. President Bush was President for almost 3,000 days.

3,000 > 100.

For whatever reason, ‘we’ have made this benchmark a ‘big’ deal in the media and around the water cooler. Assessing the efficiency of a new administration this early on in the process isn’t just difficult, it is down right silly.

Americans love grades and testing like I wrote a few posts back (What is Smart?). We grade the NFL Draft results, beauty pageants, restaurants, hotels, music, yada yada yada. But grading without enough of a sample size will provide deviations too extreme to be considered remotely accurate, so what’s the point of even doing it?

It is like predicting the #1 pick in next year’s NFL Draft (Sam Bradford, QB Oklahoma by the way). Jimmy Carter looked like Lincoln 100 days in and Bill Clinton would have been a lame-duck President if we went by his 100 day checkup. And we know how differently we view them now.

I can’t grade 100 days but I remain confident in the new administration. I am glad there is a push toward transparency, I am glad stem cell restrictions have been lifted, I am glad the government is working actively to alleviate the economic slide, and I am glad there is a new sense of optimism in the way America goes about its international diplomacy.

As our President said 100 days ago, “Let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested, we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.”

So I will give the only grade one can reasonably give at this point- Incomplete. There is a lot of work to do in this “new era of responsibility” but I think Obama will have eight years to lead that effort. But in the meantime, can the 24/7 news cycle please focus on real news and not gimmick Hallmark type grading benchmarks?