JEFF GREENFIELD: Why the First 100 Days Concept Is Bogus.

It “hangs over the West Wing like the sword of Damocles as the unofficial deadline to find their footing—or else,” according to a fascinating story this week by POLITICO’s Shane Goldmacher.

Why? Because it marks the 100th day of Donald Trump’s presidency. And, according to one White House official, “One hundred days is the marker, and we’ve got essentially 2½ weeks to turn everything around.”

Really? What happens if, in the next 18 days or so, Obamacare isn’t repealed, the new travel ban isn’t upheld and investigators don’t discover that President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower? Do impeachment proceedings start? Do prominent Republicans launch primary challenges to Trump’s renomination?

Well, maybe you can’t blame the White House for panicking; what they really are responding to is the massive media exercise in premature evaluation that has become as inevitable as it is asinine.

“The first 100 days” concept was begun in 1933 by FDR, to spur Congress into passing a flurry of mostly harmful New Deal legislation.

But, it was FDR — and therefore good, and therefore every President who followed must be measured against it.

And, if Republican, found wanting.