This story was originally published on nationaljournal.com on April 24, 2017 It is ab­so­lutely true that there is noth­ing spe­cial about a new pres­id­ent’s first 100 days. It is an ar­bit­rary and ar­ti­fi­cial con­struct, a met­ric set up long ago that is now co­di­fied, like mara­thons be­ing 26.2 miles. Just as Kim Kar­dashi­an is fam­ous for be­ing fam­ous, the first 100 days is im­port­ant be­cause it is im­port­ant. NPR seni­or ed­it­or and long­time polit­ic­al ob­serv­er Ron Elving says that the first-100-day mark­er “is now with us per­man­ently like a Hall­mark hol­i­day.” In Amer­ic­an polit­ics, the first-100-day mark­er was set down by Frank­lin Roosevelt. It then took on great­er res­on­ance with John Kennedy’s line in his in­aug­ur­al ad­dress: “All this will not be fin­ished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be fin­ished in the first 1,000 days … nor even per­haps in our life­time on this plan­et. But let us be­gin.” The Wash­ing­ton Post’s Kristine Phil­lips offered more first-100-day his­tory, re­count­ing that Pres­id­ent Lyn­don John­son told his con­gres­sion­al li­ais­on chief Larry O’Bri­en to “jerk out every damn little bill

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