It's been a year since that night in Chicago, which for photographer SCOUT TUFANKJIAN was the end of a two-year journey that had started with a New Hampshire book tour by the then-junior Senator from Illinois, who had not yet declared his intention to run for the nation's highest office.

A year ago tomorrow we woke up and elected the first-ever black President. A couple of weeks ago at the Boston Book Festival, a panel of pundits kicked off what is sure to be an avalanche of first-year retrospectives on the Obama presidency. Surprise: nobody's happy. And this, folks, is the loyal opposition.

LANI GUINIER says the first year of Obama has been marked by the "dis-involvement of all the people who helped make him president in the first place," adding that if he sticks to his current course, it will be "very dificult to accomplish the change he promised and that we need."

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) delivered a stunning blow to Chicago this afternoon in Copenhagen, Denmark, when, in voting to determine which of four world-class cities would get to host the 2016 Olympic Games, Chicago -- one of the inside favorites to win -- was knocked out in the first round.

Let Madrid, Rio, or Tokyo have the 2016 Olympic Games. Mr. President, if you love Chicago, you will ask the IOC to spend that summer anywhere but your adopted hometown.

As we predicted last week, yesterday President Obama flip-flopped on traveling to Copenhagen to lobby the Olympic committee. According to the NY Times:

Many presidents and statesmen before him have tried and failed to overhaul the shame that is America's health-care system, but Obama is on the right track and continues to plug away at reform. Earlier today, he spoke in front of nearly 2,000 members of the American Medical Association in Chicago and received a number of applause for his remarks.

Bomb scare in the Square: Police appear ready to blow up Kenmore dummy; bicycle commuters forced into close contact with BU students. [Boston Phoenix]

Obama continues to pressure automakers: The market doesn't love it. [Reuters]

Here we go again: This time it's pistachio nuts. Who watches the nut watchmen? [AP]

Sure, he was being interviewed by a journalist from the capo-di-tutti-capi of old-media elites (what, was he gonna tell the New York Times that he gets his economic news from Perez Hilton?). But still, with the fishwrap industry taking at least as big a shipment of fail as Wall Street these days, it's kind of sweet to hear the Leader of the Free World say something nice about newspapers.

In one of those quietly terrifying page-one stories in the March 3 New York Times, we learn that G.W. Bush's crack legal team advised him, after 9/11, that, among other unheard-of things, he could use the US military to conduct warrantless domestic searches in the name of fighting terrorists. (See Memos Reveal Scope of Power Bush Sought in Fighting Terror

Speaking last night at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, Tony "Angels In America" Kushner let slip that he expects to hear, within the week, whether funding will be approved for Lincoln, the long-awaited Steve Spielberg-helmed Abe biopic that Kushner has been writing the screenplay for.

Mike Miliard's blog post, "Barack Obama is @#$% tired of this @#$%! " has caught on like wildfire.

In a spoof on MTV's "The City," Newsweek is producing an online reality show called "The District." The premise is what if President Barack Obama had a reality show (on MTV). It's funny, not hilarious like we would be, but I was bummed when I finally realized it wasn't actually Obama speaking. Damn the gullibility!

New episode every Monday night.

Pundits of all stripes have been preparing us not to expect overnight miracles from the Obama administration. Barack himself quite sensibly cautioned that the mess his predecessor got us into isn't going be tidied up by the weekend.
What immediate progress we've enjoyed in these first few days of the new order has been gratifying indeed: concrete plans to dismantle our illegal detention facility in Guantanamo; a White House salary freeze; a curtailment of lobbying clout; unshackling the Freedom of Information Act; serious talk of getting us out of the pointless war in Iraq.

After a calm Obama took the oath and the near-hysteric crowds had dispersed, inaugural balls were forming all over the nation's capital. Big names like Kanye, Beyonce, and Sting all sung their praise, literally, to Obama and his wife Michelle as they glided on the dance floors until 2 a.m. this morning. A collection of the balls are below for us all to feel one step closer to the historical evening.