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I haven't done one of these three-dot columns in a while (as always, in homage to the late, great columnist Herb Caen), but the flood of news tidbits flowing from the White House is relentless, so I thought it was time to catch up on some of the fresh idiocy coming from the Oval Office.
Tomorrow, in case you hadn't heard, will be Donald Trump's 100th day as president. Grading his performance has been a weeklong event in the media. Rather than our normal Friday format, what follows is our honest evaluation of Trump's first 100 days, which might be summed up as: "Coulda been better, coulda been a lot worse."
At the end of the week, Donald Trump has two big deadlines looming -- one real, and one imaginary. The real one is that the government will shut down unless Congress acts, and the imaginary one is the end of Trump's first 100 days as president. Not content with the fact that solving the budget problem is going to be hard enough, Trump is pushing for action on two other fronts as well: tax reform and healthcare reform. He wants a big win to brag about when he reaches 100 days, but he might just be setting himself up for failure across the board.
We'd like to boldly add a new disease's definition to the political lexicon. We feel this is necessary since Donald Trump seems to have caught a rather drastic case of "100 Days Envy." Symptoms are a tendency to flail around looking for a legislative win you can brag about, and an unnatural fear of being called a loser by the entire planet's media for not even coming close to fulfilling pretty much any of the grandiose promises you made for your first 100 days in office.
This week saw some history made in the Trump White House. For the first time (at least in our memory), a White House top aide actually apologized for saying something stupid. So far, being Donald Trump (or being a Trump spokesperson) has meant never having to say you're sorry over any idiocy that gets said or tweeted, but this week saw Sean Spicer being forced to apologize for apparently forgetting about that whole Holocaust thing. While defending Adolf Hitler, on the first day of Passover, no less.
Donald Trump's presidency is fast approaching the "first 100 days" milestone, and he seems to be trying to set his own record during this period -- a record of breaking more campaign promises than any previous president ever has during his first 100 days. This week brought on a flurry of flip-flops, perhaps signaling that in the remaining two weeks or so Trump will be trying to outdo himself in the broken promises category.
Last Monday, I wrote about how bad Donald Trump's poll numbers have been, pointing out that he got absolutely no honeymoon from the public. I never thought I'd be writing about Trump's poll numbers again so quickly, but then everything about the Trump presidency seems to operate at warp speed, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. Today, Donald Trump hit a milestone in job approval polling -- he is now at the lowest point Barack Obama ever had, in eight full years. Trump's average daily job approval at RealClearPolitics.com is now a dismal 39.8 percent. His disapproval rating stands at 53.3 percent. And he's not even through his first 100 days.
Will tomorrow be any different at the White House? Since we all seem to now be living in Bizarro World, wouldn't that tend to make you think that we'd get no foolishness from our president on April Fool's Day? I mean, in an April Fool's Year, shouldn't one day be set aside for nonfoolery? Maybe even that's too much to ask from this fool's paradise of a White House.
There's a meme running around inside the Beltway this week concerning the likelihood of Democrats in Congress working with Donald Trump to get some legislation passed. However, much of the gossiping ignores one key question, because so far the speculation has mostly been focused on: "Will they or won't they work together, and what will it mean politically for both?" That's a valid thing to ponder, but the essential part most of this speculation misses is that any collaboration between the two is going to heavily depend on the substance of the issue, and precisely what's being proposed. Substance matters, in other words, even if it is more fun to wonder what the political fallout may be.
A little more than two months in, Donald Trump's presidency is already unique in a number of ways. One of these that has so far gotten little attention (since there's so much else going on) is Trump's complete lack of a honeymoon period with the public. Trump's job approval polling started out pretty bad and it's only gotten worse. The first few months of a presidency isn't always indicative of how successful any president will wind up, of course, but Trump is truly in a category of his own in the polls so far -- and not in a good way.