This week marks the one-year anniversary of Barack Obama's inauguration. Can you believe it? It's been 365 whole days since that frigid winter afternoon when Pastor Rick Warren intoned a prayer for "Malia . . . and SA-SHA!" and Aretha Franklin wore that ridiculous, big-ass hat.It's been, shall we say, a fractious dozen months. And in the waning days of his first year, so much of the focus of the 24-hour news circus was focused on Obama's campaign promises that haven't been kept.
Last October, Saturday Night Live hit a nerve when it laid out the grim facts in a skit with Fred Armisen playing the beleaguered Barack: "When you look at my record, it's very clear what I've done so far. And that is . . . nothing. Nada. Almost one year, and nothing to show for it."
A bit of an exaggeration, perhaps, but from gays in the military to Wall Street reform, from getting us out of Iraq to closing Guantánamo Bay, Obama has what seems to be an unusually long Still To Do list.
It gets worse, people! It turns out that list is even longer than we'd figured. The Phoenix has uncovered a secret memo outlining some of the things the POTUS will try to square away in the embryonic days of Year Two.
1) Have one of those "Mad Men days" where everyone drinks booze and smokes butts in the Oval Office; make sure to invite Henry Gates and Cambridge Police Sergeant James Crowley
2) Spit some sick rhymes for that Jay-Z collabo
3) Close Guantánamo Bay prison — and open Guantánamo Bay Club Med
4) Get Biden that Snuggie he wanted as a belated birthday gift
5) Figure out what to do with all those fucking tea bags he keeps getting in the mail
6) Score some tickets to those Pavement reunion shows in Central Park
7) Spend some quality time with Bo the dog; teach him to sic Dick Cheney
8) Forcibly appoint Jay Leno as ambassador to Germany — a/k/a the unfunniest nation in the world — so he'll finally retire and stop cock-blocking Conan
9) Set into motion, at long last, his secret Islamofascist agenda, which will tear asunder the very fabric of this country's once-proud democracy and condemn its citizens to a grueling lifetime of socialist privation
10) Get around to watching all those Jersey Shore episodes cued up on the DVR