100 days

Imagine a new neighbor, perhaps a somewhat orange tinted one, has moved onto your street. The new guy shows up at the neighborhood watch meeting and boldly makes a lot of promises. For instance, his backyard has long been a swamp and he promises to drain it. He wants to build a fence between his house and his neighbor’s house, but says his neighbor will pay for it. Before long he manages to offend nearby friendly towns as well as threaten to blow up a far away town (with a crazy mayor). And so on…

Then about 100 days after he moves in, the new guy announces that no one has ever accomplished more in the neighborhood than he has. He keeps repeating it as if saying it over and over will make it true. But the swamp behind his house has not been drained. In fact, it is deeper than ever. There is no fence and his neighbor has no intention of paying for one. The truth is his house looks exactly the same (or worse) than before he moved in and the only thing you’ve seen him accomplish is loading his golf clubs into his car (which he does quite often).

That’s kind of how I see all of this 100 days talk. Naturally it would be easier to stomach if we were only talking about a neighbor. Most of the time, a bad neighbor is simply a nuisance and there are always options to deal with a nuisance. You can choose to ignore him, you can try looking for common ground, or you could even think about moving away yourself (and in rare cases, you might even wait for the police to arrest the neighbor for treason but for some reason that seems to take forever).

Those are all options in our neighbor analogy but unfortunately none of them apply here (especially the common ground option).  We all know which neighbor I’m talking about, and not only is he well beyond nuisance status, he also has the nuclear codes.

During his campaign, that particular neighbor made a big deal about all of the things he’d get done in his first 100 days. Then as that 100-day mark drew closer and he had precious little to show for it, he announced that it was actually a “ridiculous standard.”  When the media pointed out that he was the one who set that standard during his own campaign, he came out with a new line, “no administration has accomplished more in the first 90 days” than his.  Remember, if you repeat it often enough, people will believe it.

In fact, in the neighbor’s book, “The Art of the Deal”, he says this:

"The final key to the way I promote is bravado. I play to people's fantasies. People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That's why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole. It's an innocent form of exaggeration, and a very effective form of promotion."

He calls it truthful hyperbole; I call it bullshit. So far, no meaningful legislation has been signed. Healthcare reform was a debacle the first time around and may in fact be a debacle again for round two. The announced tax cuts, which not surprisingly favor the rich, offered few if any details and has very little chance of passing. Many of the jobs that were supposedly created were already in the pipeline. Much of what the neighbor has supposedly accomplished has been through executive order. That would be the same method the neighbor ridiculed when his predecessor used it. In my eyes (and I’m not alone), the new neighbor hasn’t really accomplished a darn thing.

He’s actually the kind of neighbor who is a one-upper. When he is telling stories at your backyard barbecue, he caught the biggest fish, he drives the nicest car, and if you’ve been to three continents, he’s been to five. Twice. He’s the kind of guy you only invited to the barbecue because you invited the whole street. You actually hope he doesn’t come but somehow he always shows up (unless you’ve also invited the White House Correspondents Association, then he’ll be too afraid to come). Again, if only we were really talking about a simple backyard barbecue…

But we’re not and now we’re into the next 100 days. Pretty soon we'll be hearing, "no administration has ever accomplished more on Tuesday than this one." But eventually there will have to be real accomplishments. Even this new neighbor can’t keep bullshitting forever. How do I know? That’s also in his book. According to him:

“You can't con people, at least not for long. You can create excitement, you can do wonderful promotion and get all kinds of press, and you can throw in a little hyperbole. But if you don't deliver the goods, people will eventually catch on."

I guess I just have to be patient, and hope the rest of the neighbors catch on. In the meantime, he is not invited to my barbecue.