FYI, newsmedia, we are only that many days into Barack Obama's president. And fyi again: the "first 100 days" is a meaningless marker.

When FDR was inaugurated, he noticed that congress was willing to pass anything he wanted. So he basically made a special 100-day-long "special session." Thus, for him, this "100 days" thing made logical sense. And plus people did not judge him on those 100 days until they were done with, and everyone had time to evaluate the various programs and bills he introduced.

Ever since, Presidents have been judged on their first 100 days. But this year the country is in so much shit, and our president is so young and cool and popular, that every news organization is falling all over itself to analyze Barry Obama's first 100 days, even though there hasn't been a special 100 day special session of congress or anything. And as we mentioned, it has not been 100 days yet. Next week will be terrible. What do the various ancient hacks of the Washington Post think about Obama's first hundred days compared to the meaningless first 100 days of the presidents they used to cover when they were the best newspaper in the county? Oh good they have vlogs from Woodward and Bradlee about it. GERALD FORD ATE AN ENGLISH MUFFIN IN HIS FIRST 100 DAYS WE DID NOT MAKE THAT FACT UP.

(Barack Obama sort of brought this on himself when he mentioned reading a book about Roosevelt's legislative marathon, and he even has his own blog about his first 100 days.)

Post-Roosevelt, why did this 100 days thing stick? We don't judge anything else based on 100 days! Nothing! 30 days, or 90 days, or six months, sure. We will accept that amount of free AOL. And sure, trying to put the actions of a new president into historical context, or evaluating them as a whole, is good and useful, especially in a news environment of constant, never-ending information and a ten-minute news cycle and an audience without the ability to retain memories for more than ten minutes. But when you are liveblogging the first hundred days you are contributing to that, not actually providing useful, coherent analysis.

So here is what Barack Obama has done with his first hundred days:

  • Stimulus
  • Puppy

Now let's move on to documenting his first YEAR!