The Legend of the President’s First Hundred Days
17th January 2017
Rick Brookhiser examines how clichés get started.
The initial “hundred days” as a distinct period in a presidency was first used to describe the special session of Congress called by Franklin D. Roosevelt in March 1933. It set the template for the opening act of an activist administration: a president and his allies (really subordinates) in Congress passing a bold program to address a crisis. The president, if not the program, is then enshrined in myth.