We've Only Just Begun
THE SCRAPBOOK seldom finds itself in agreement with David Axelrod, the Democratic political guru who gave America Barack Obama. But we couldn't agree more with his dismissive attitude toward the media's breathless commemoration of President Obama's First Hundred Days in office.
Taking stock at the end of the First Hundred Days, says Axelrod, is a "Hallmark holiday," a Washington contrivance of no particular significance.
Right you are, Mr. Axelrod. The trouble is that President Obama seems not to agree with you. To mark his hundredth day, the commander in chief flew to St. Louis last week for a self-congratulatory, and thoroughly scripted, "town meeting" with selected Democratic voters, and then conducted a prime-time news conference (also, one might say, with selected Democratic voters), in which he made no news but projected his customary self-confidence.
Of course, THE SCRAPBOOK can hardly expect a politician to avoid an opportunity for self-glorification. The trouble is that the media are supposed to be the grownups in circumstances like this; but (as we have also come to expect) the media recorded Obama's First Hundred Days in roughly the same tones as an adolescent girl confiding in her diary about that hunky quarterback.
The Washington Post is a case in point. On Wednesday readers were presented with a heavily promoted eight-page special section--"100 Days: President Obama's First Months in Office"--with the requisite thoughtful portrait of Obama on the front page, 15 more pictures inside (Obama with chin in hand, hugging Michelle, speaking in cabinet, meeting with young people, addressing Congress, high-fiving the troops, furrowing his brow, romping with Bo, conferring with Joe Biden), and a special report on the first lady and the two Obama daughters.
To this informative package were added observations from impartial observers of Democratic presidents (Doris Kearns Goodwin: "He knows how to relax and enjoy himself," Sean Wilentz: "He's done well," Walter Isaac-son: "Astonishingly successful," Douglas Brinkley: "He's a historic figure") and the hard-hitting coverage that is the Post's trademark ("Communicator in Chief Has a Tone for Every Situation," "From the Start, Putting a Bold Stamp on the White House").
All right, so we've demonstrated that the Post (and the New York Times and network news and The Today Show and CNN) abased themselves before Barack Obama--again. But the larger point is that commemorating the First Hundred Days in office is not only a meaningless contrivance, but a stunningly misleading contrivance as well.
The whole notion began with the flurry of domestic legislative activity that accompanied Franklin Roosevelt, who entered office in 1933 facing closed banks, 25 percent unemployment, a giant worldwide industrial slump, high tariffs, a depressed stock market--and Adolf Hitler in power in Germany for just five weeks. By the time Roosevelt's presidency ended in 1945 it was the defeat of Hitler--not the banks or unemployment--which signified success or failure.
Subsequent Democratic presidents have made something of a cult of their First Hundred Days, usually to their sorrow: John F. Kennedy tried the hardest in 1961, and had only the Bay of Pigs catastrophe to show for it. But the fact is that the First Hundred Days are seldom a precursor of what is to come. Jimmy Carter entered the White House in 1977 full of resolve to defuse tensions with the Soviet Union, solve the "energy crisis," restore integrity to the presidency, and fix the economy. He ended with Bert Lance, gas lines, double-digit inflation, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and American diplomats held hostage in Tehran.
Unquestionably, President Obama has made it clear that the next four years will constitute a deliberate break from the policies of the last eight years, whether it's government-run health care or friendly overtures to Iran and Venezuela or higher taxes. He certainly has the support of the media and a Democratic Congress. But there are 1,461 days in any presidential term, and his has barely begun.
The Financial Crisis in Academe (cont.)
The economic tough times have come calling on Smith College. Faced with a need to reduce the budget by $30 million and the faculty by 30 over the next two years, the college released a plan to start the saving by firing the school's three chaplains. This wouldn't be particularly noteworthy except that the move is being sold to students not as a sacrifice, but as an opportunity to . . . wait for it . . . increase diversity on campus.
Smith currently has chaplains who serve Catholics, Protestants, and Jews. But, as the Sophian reports, the administration argues that eliminating these positions will "promote religious and cultural diversity in the college." Staying on message, Dean Maureen Mahoney wrote, "Our student body has become increasingly diverse in every way, including religiously, and we believe students would be better served by moving away from the emphasis on these three faith groups and moving toward broader support for the full range of religious belief and practice on campus." Of course, this being Smith the chaplains were already working in a fairly ecumenical fashion, supporting groups from the Radical Catholic Feminists of Smith to the Hillel Foundation to the Association of Smith Pagans and Al-Iman.
Smith has spent much of the past few decades trying to erase its embarrassing religious roots. You'd hardly believe it, but the image at right--that's the Virgin Mary above the biblical inscription "In your virtue, knowledge"--was once an official school seal. You can't find it anywhere on campus these days. And the school's website reprints a passage from Sophia Smith's will establishing the college:
It is my opinion that by the education of women, what are called their "wrongs" will be redressed, their wages adjusted, their weight of influence in reforming the evils of society will be greatly increased . . .
But the school actually airbrushes out--without even an ellipsis--what Smith's will really said:
It is my opinion that by the higher and more thoroughly Christian education of women, what are called their "wrongs" will be redressed, their wages will be adjusted, their weight of influence in reforming the evils of society will be greatly increased . . . [emphasis added]
In this light, the firing of the Smith chaplains seems more of a piece with Rahm Emanuel's exhortation--never let a crisis go to waste.
On a related note, earlier this month Smith hired Andrea Stone as the English Department's new Professor of African Diasporic Literature. Some parts of the university are simply too valuable to lose.
Sentences We Didn't Finish, 100-Days Version
"How should one assess the First Hundred Days of President Obama? I come at this question through an experience of some years ago. After he won the presidential election of 1980, Ronald Reagan asked his transition team to come up with an action plan for his early weeks in office. I was a co-captain of that team . . . " (David Gergen, CNN.com, April 29).
If the first 100 days of President Obama's term have proved anything, it is that he is a hard man to classify . . . " (Gerald F. Seib, Wall Street Journal, April 29).