Mullings A Political Cyber Column By Rich Galen

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Let Me Count the Ways

Wednesday, April 25, 2001

Lots of numbers today. Did I tell you that there would be a million "First Hundred Day" stories? Here's one:

In one of those interesting, if tortured, examples of the snappy repartee which occurs in Washington, Patricia Wilson of Reuters, dutifully quoted Press Secretary Ari Fleischer talking about the new tone that President Bush has helped establish in Washington when he said: "Toward that point, on the 100th day, on Monday in the White House, the president will be hosting a lunch for all 535 members of Congress to come down [from Capitol Hill]."

Ms. Wilson felt it necessary to correct Ari (with some implied snippiness), when she wrote in the next graf: "There are currently 532 members of Congress because of three vacancies in the 435-member House."

It turns out that Fleischer was closer to being correct than Ms. Wilson. Invitations will be going out to the 532 living and VOTING members of the House and Senate.

But, we assume, invites are also being sent to the four non-voting Delegates (from the District of Columbia, the Virgin Islands, Guam and American Samoa) and the one non-voting Resident Commissioner from Puerto Rico.

So, the REAL number to be invited for lunch will be 537.

As April 30th occurs on a Monday, watch for the House and the Senate to schedule votes on Monday - rather than the more typical Tuesday - afternoon to insure good attendance.

Is this fun, or what?

As long as we're in the counting business, the U.S. House of Representatives, according to its web site, will have been in session for some 26 days out of the 117 days which will have elapsed since it organized on January 3rd or about 22% of the time.

Don't blame this on the GOP. In the 40 years that the Democrats controlled the House up until 1995, they operated on approximately the same schedule.

As an historical note, according to the Architect of the Capitol's office, the House and Senate chambers were first air conditioned in 1929 but their office buildings were not air conditioned until 1938.

The excesses which have been visited upon the country by the Congress should not be laid at the feet of Tip O'Neill or Newt Gingrich but, rather, at the sweaty brow of Willis Haviland Carrier.

Poll Numbers: A USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll now shows 71% of Americans approve of the way President George W. Bush handled the China Incident which is a huge majority for a foreign affairs issue. According to the Gallup release, "In fact, only a few historical ratings obtained by Gallup are higher."

You have, by now, been besieged by e-mails touting the ABC/Washington Post poll which shows Bush with a job approval rating of 63 percent. On the "issue handling" questions (Do you approve/disapprove of the way Bush is handling �" He scores 55% on the economy; 62% on foreign affairs; 54% on tax cuts, and 60 percent approve of his handling of education issues.

The only issue area below 50% is the environment. But here's the point you need to make chatting with your Democratic colleagues at coffee this morning: Even on the environment, even after getting beat up on carbon dioxide and arsenic, even after full-time clucking by the chattering class here, Bush, on the environment, wins a PLURALITY 47%-41%. What? You didn't see that in your newspaper?

The answer to your next question is this: The Washington Post poll for Bill Clinton at the 100-day mark was 59%.

You can see a link to the entire poll from the Washington Post on the Secret Decoder Ring Page.

According to that same poll, the public's approval of the job the Congress is doing is a whopping 58% which is the highest in the table going back to 1974.

Wait. The Congress has been out of session more than three-quarters of the time? It has passed no major legislation? 58% of the public thinks they are doing a good job?

If they NEVER come to work they won't pass any laws, which suits us; and they'll all get re-elected, which suits them.

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