Publisher's Notebook
One-hundred days of Trump
This week's Post hits the streets on the anniversary of 100 days of the Trump presidency. I figured that was a natural fit for this week's Weekly Online poll and column topic. Has President Trump's first 100 days been a success? Please cast your vote by going to your local Post website.
Actually, I think 100 days is way too early to tell much. Presidential candidates like to talk about all that they will do in their first 100 days if they get elected. Then once they are in office, they backpedal and say it is too early to judge.
That is exactly what Trump is doing. I actually agree with him that it is way too early to really judge, but since he repeatedly claimed while running that he was the master at getting things done fast, I think the subject is fair game.
Trump got his Supreme Court justice; put one big win on his ledger. Gorsuch was confirmed via the "nuclear option" with only three Democrat votes. Trump has done quite a bit by issuing a lot of executive actions, without any votes. He also bombed Syria, without any votes.
Notice a trend here? One of our potential poll answers is "His administration's lack of focus and disorganization has limited its accomplishments." That certainly seems to be a true statement to me. There are a lot of reasons for this, though, that in fairness to Trump, many other new Presidents haven't faced.
First, he is not a professional politician. He has to learn a lot on the job. The Obama administration laid landmines all over for the fledgling Trump newbies to dodge, many of whom were not professional politicians either.
More importantly, Trump is a President without any real loyalty from his own party. He is simply playing out an uneasy alliance with the Republicans and getting things done is going to be very hard. It also must be said that he has brought much of this mistrust and apprehension on himself with his own bombastic and confrontational style. You reap what you sow.
Add to this the outright war being waged on him by the mainstream media. That is a whole lot to overcome. The first 100 days is usually called the "honeymoon." There was never a honeymoon for Trump. This was a shotgun wedding with both sides lawyering up from day one. Add a negative media playing the role of the unhappy mothers-in-law peeking in every window. It is a little hard for romance to blossom.
My evaluation is that he has worked very hard to deliver on his promises, but the combination of all of the previously-mentioned challenges has made getting things accomplished very difficult. So I would give him a D+, the plus for effort.
However, I do think he will have a lot more coming soon and the picture will get a lot clearer. As of this writing, the Trump administration is preparing to unveil a complete tax overhaul. This will make or break his presidency, in my opinion, so it really is too early to judge.
Will he even be able to get it passed? It surely won't be easy to get anything through Congress when both parties keep voting along straight party lines on everything. The margin of error on passing any bill right now is just so small.
If he can fix a broken health care system and a broken economy, nobody will care how much got done in the first 100 days. If he can't, nobody will care how much got done in the first 100 days.
Maybe my scorecard should have just said "I" for incomplete. That would be too easy. This is the opinion page, after all.
Last week, we stayed away from politics and asked you how you rate the Cavs' chances of winning the NBA Finals again. The close winner was no, with 35.5 percent of the votes. Right behind was yes at 32.9 percent and 31.6 percent maybe.
As Jim Carey would say, "so you're telling me there's a chance?" Probably Meatloaf has the best answer. If you combine the yeses with the maybes, "Two out of three ain't bad."
Actually, I think 100 days is way too early to tell much. Presidential candidates like to talk about all that they will do in their first 100 days if they get elected. Then once they are in office, they backpedal and say it is too early to judge.
That is exactly what Trump is doing. I actually agree with him that it is way too early to really judge, but since he repeatedly claimed while running that he was the master at getting things done fast, I think the subject is fair game.
Trump got his Supreme Court justice; put one big win on his ledger. Gorsuch was confirmed via the "nuclear option" with only three Democrat votes. Trump has done quite a bit by issuing a lot of executive actions, without any votes. He also bombed Syria, without any votes.
Notice a trend here? One of our potential poll answers is "His administration's lack of focus and disorganization has limited its accomplishments." That certainly seems to be a true statement to me. There are a lot of reasons for this, though, that in fairness to Trump, many other new Presidents haven't faced.
First, he is not a professional politician. He has to learn a lot on the job. The Obama administration laid landmines all over for the fledgling Trump newbies to dodge, many of whom were not professional politicians either.
More importantly, Trump is a President without any real loyalty from his own party. He is simply playing out an uneasy alliance with the Republicans and getting things done is going to be very hard. It also must be said that he has brought much of this mistrust and apprehension on himself with his own bombastic and confrontational style. You reap what you sow.
Add to this the outright war being waged on him by the mainstream media. That is a whole lot to overcome. The first 100 days is usually called the "honeymoon." There was never a honeymoon for Trump. This was a shotgun wedding with both sides lawyering up from day one. Add a negative media playing the role of the unhappy mothers-in-law peeking in every window. It is a little hard for romance to blossom.
My evaluation is that he has worked very hard to deliver on his promises, but the combination of all of the previously-mentioned challenges has made getting things accomplished very difficult. So I would give him a D+, the plus for effort.
However, I do think he will have a lot more coming soon and the picture will get a lot clearer. As of this writing, the Trump administration is preparing to unveil a complete tax overhaul. This will make or break his presidency, in my opinion, so it really is too early to judge.
Will he even be able to get it passed? It surely won't be easy to get anything through Congress when both parties keep voting along straight party lines on everything. The margin of error on passing any bill right now is just so small.
If he can fix a broken health care system and a broken economy, nobody will care how much got done in the first 100 days. If he can't, nobody will care how much got done in the first 100 days.
Maybe my scorecard should have just said "I" for incomplete. That would be too easy. This is the opinion page, after all.
Last week, we stayed away from politics and asked you how you rate the Cavs' chances of winning the NBA Finals again. The close winner was no, with 35.5 percent of the votes. Right behind was yes at 32.9 percent and 31.6 percent maybe.
As Jim Carey would say, "so you're telling me there's a chance?" Probably Meatloaf has the best answer. If you combine the yeses with the maybes, "Two out of three ain't bad."