During the president's first two months, says the Project for Excellence in Journalism, half the editorials were critical of him, and only 20 percent positive. By contrast, the group's study of the Times and Post section fronts and the ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS newscasts found that Bush's news coverage was 22 percent positive and 28 percent negative. Clinton drew 27 percent positive and 28 percent negative coverage at the start of his term. Many journalists acknowledge that the whole First 100 Days genre is silly, arbitrary and a blurry snapshot at best. It's particularly unwarranted in this case because Bush has essentially said, 'Judge me by whether I get this tax cut,' his major initiative in office, and we're in no position to know whether he's going to get it.
Any judgments have to be very provisional.
Nixon was regarded as dull. But we tend to do what we did the last time. That means people have fainter impressions of him than they had of Clinton. . . . He's a less compelling figure. He doesn't beg psychoanalysis quite as much.