Call it an artificial measurement if you will, but Washington has always put a good bit of emphasis on a new president’s first 100 days in office. President Donald J. Trump was making bold predictions about his first 100 days until about the 50-day mark. Things were looking bad on a lot of fronts and there was no sign of improvement on the horizon…

…We really do need to recap. It gets confusing. You have to start with the fact that several members of the Trump campaign are under investigation for potentially improper communications with the Russians. Yes, those same Russians who tried to sabotage the Democratic National Committee and tilt the election for Trump. This kind of investigation is… here’s that word again… unprecedented. If a budding spy novelist has proposed such a thing to his publisher, he’d have been laughed out of the room…

…A big legislative win on health care would have moved the spotlight away from the ongoing campaign investigations… at least for a while. But the health care bill was yanked before a clearly-doomed House vote and Speaker Paul Ryan took most of the blame. Regardless, there was no big legislative win on health care…

…Oh, remember that YUGE wall that candidate Trump insisted would be a high priority if he got elected? Well… it’s been booted out of the budget because the whole darned thing might collapse under the weight of it. The Mexicans won’t have to pay for anything…

…Thus far, Trump’s big “win” has been the appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. But, let’s be honest. All he did was name the guy he was told to name. With clear majorities in the House and Senate, the Republicans ensured Gorsuch’s confirmation…

…Trump is also outshining his predecessor at golf. As a candidate, the billionaire political hobbyist loved to criticize then-President Obama for his public golf outings. During his first three months in office, Trump spent 19 days at a golf course and played golf on at least 13 occasions, according to The New York Times. The Times found that Obama spent no days at a golf course during his first three months. Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton also spent either no time or very little time golfing during their first 90 days — Bush made no trips to a golf course, while Clinton spent three days at courses…

…There are a lot of ways to measure success and failure. Thus far, Trump’s efforts to move the bar have had mixed results. As long as those investigations into his campaign’s connections to the Russians are hanging over his head, the president will continue to have record-low approval ratings…

— Mark Bedford