By Mark Lassiter

Nearly a year ago, my daughter and I emerged from the sardine-packed platform of the Federal Center Metrorail station in Washington DC to witness a moment that can only happen once. We looked up into a grayish-blue dawn and braced our faces against the bitter cold air streaming down the escalator shaft. There was no cheering or chants from the endless mob of commuters. We were thankful to have arrived safely. The morning light invited thousands of us to the Inauguration of Barack Obama on a winter in America morning that cut through any and all layers of clothing. Somewhere, Gil Scott Heron was testing his vocal chords for the national anthem.

We waited in the long security line with our coveted tickets for more than five hours. Around 11:35 a.m., we walked through the final security checkpoint to the west front of The Capitol, barely in time to hear the formal public address announcements of dignitaries and special guests.

The crowd was both patient and playful. When Vice President Dick Cheney was introduced the greeting was not friendly. One of the loudest ovations was for the adorable Obama daughters, Malia and Sasha. We felt how their lives would be changed forever and wished them protection.

In the first year of the Obama Presidency, every commentator, contributors and blogger has an opinion on the very marketable leader since he gave his historic acceptance speech. This furious, non-stop output continues to shape the public dialogue in ways that will require years to understand.

February: People who are scared to death of the mere thought of a black man answering the phone in The Oval Office start to make their voices heard on cable television. Right-wing radio/television pundit Sean Hannity trots out Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson on his Fox News program who adds, “I think we all agree that Barack Obama was elected by, mostly black racists and white guilty people.”  Peterson also claims that the enslavement of black people was a gift from God and that slave ships were comparable to “riding in a crowded airplane.” I suggest that Rev. Peterson should be immediately ticketed on the first commemorative middle passage flight from Kingston, Jamaica to Lagos, Nigeria—on an overbooked flight that stays in the air for six months.

February Part 2: The country’s first African-American president signs the $787 billion economic recovery bill after a heated debate in Washington. The New York Post publishes an editorial cartoon that pictures two policemen, both holding smoking guns, standing over a murdered chimpanzee, with multiple gunshot wounds in its chest. One cop says to the other, “they’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.” “Just the fact that they put a monkey with gunshot wounds in his chest, it gives the idea of an assassination,” said Peter Aviles, 48, a New York building superintendent.

March: President Obama delivers speech on the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He comments, “The war will be long. There will be difficult days. But we will seek lasting partnerships with Afghanistan and Pakistan that serve promise of a new day for their people. And we will use the elements of our national power to defeat al Qaeda and to defend America, our allies, and all who seek a better future.”

April: President and First Lady Michele Obama visit Europe and Iraq. At the end of the month he says to Fox News, “I am happy to have a serious discussion about health care… let’s not play games and pretend…” False news pundit Jon Stewart has it nailed here on The Daily Show.

May: Fox News retained its number one spot in ratings, averaging more total viewers in Monday – Sunday prime time (1.959 million up 24 percent over May 2008) than CNN (767,000 down 22 percent) and MSNBC (756,000 up 10 percent) combined. For a change of pace, comedian Wanda Sykes provides fresh insights at The White House Correspondents Dinner, with the information that Rush Limbaugh was actually the 12th hijacker on 9/11.  Always the pioneer, Wanda became the first African-American woman to deliver jokes at the prestigious event.

June: President Obama delivers a historic speech at Cairo University.  On his nationally syndicated radio show, Mark Savage declares, “the white Christian heterosexual male is the epitome of everything that is right with America.”

July: Radio host Glenn Beck says Obama’s agenda is driven by “reparations” and the desire to “settle old racial scores.” On the July 23 edition of his Fox News show, Beck said:

“Everything that is getting pushed through Congress, including this health care bill, are transforming America, and they are all driven by President Obama’s thinking on one idea: reparations.” Beck added, “These massive programs are Obama-brand reparations, or in presidential speak, leveling out the playing field.” Beck also said that Obama’s goal is “creating a new America, a new model, a model that will settle old racial scores through new social justice.”

August: President Obama’s approval ratings for July appear to put him in a Bush-like nosedive. A Washington Post poll finds that “49 per cent now express confidence that Obama will make the right decisions for the country, down from 60 percent at the 100 day mark in his presidency.” The vultures are circling as the honeymoon period that all Presidents receive is apparently over. I think about the first person who decided that 100 days was an accurate measure of a President of The United States.

September: Thousands of angry protesters from across the country converge on the Capitol to demonstrate against President Obama’s proposals for health care reform and voicing opposition to big government, what they say is “over-the-top” spending. They chanted demeaning slogans and brandished ugly artwork depicting President Obama as Adolf Hitler and the Joker. The few civilized slogans included “‘No big government” and “Obamacare makes me sick.” The herd of unanimously white protesters are empowered by the free air time afforded on Fox News with its unflinching support of the Tea Party movement and FreedomWorks, a conservative activist group led by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey.

October: The mass exodus of Republicans away from other TV news and toward the Fox News Channel continues. Between 1998 and 2008, the share of Republicans saying they regularly watch Fox News rose 22 points, from 14 percent to 36 percent. Meanwhile, the share who regularly watch network evening news fell 15 points and the share who regularly watch CNN declined by eight points.

According to the Pew Research Center, 63 percent of those who cited Fox News as their main source of news either identified as Republican or leaned to the GOP, which was 27 points more than in the general public (36 percent in the July news attitudes survey). An identical share of CNN’s audience (63 percent) identified as Democrats or leaned Democratic, which was 14 points more than the general public (49 percent in that survey).

November: NewsCorp CEO, Robert Murdoch, publisher of the New York Post, says Beck’s “racist” comment “was right.” Responding to Beck’s description of Obama as a “racist” who has “a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture,” Murdoch said in a November 6 interview with Sky News Australia that while that “was something which perhaps shouldn’t have been said about the president, but if you actually assess what he was talking about, he was right.” Murdoch also claimed that Obama “did make a very racist comment.” A News Corp. spokesperson reportedly later told *Politico* that Murdoch “does not at all, for a minute, think the president is a racist.”

President Obama is universally chastised in the media for bowing to Japan’s Emperor Akihito. Former Vice President Dick Cheney leaps on the dog pile with, “here’s a guy without much experience, who campaigned against much of what we put in place. … and who travels around the world apologizing,.. I think our adversaries – especially when that is preceeded by a deep bow – see that as a sign of weakness.” Michelle Malkin, a Fox News regular, offers her typically bitter and nasty opinion, calling the President a “waterboy.”

December: On his evening show on Fox News, Sean Hannity invokes the name of Rev. Jeremiah Wright to sound the alarm to his self-proclaimed “patriots” and “great Americans” that “the Negroes are coming… the Negroes are coming…!.” Dick Cheney closes out the year with another chorus of complaints that President Obama is not doing enough to protect the country. When asked whether the Bush administration focus on Iraq was responsible for the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, Cheney answered, “I basically don’t.”

President Obama’s first historic eleven months were a series of electrical shocks to the political industry and American psyche. All things considered, given the mess he inherited, his first near-year in office feels more like a decade. With the advent of cable news, digital information and public forums there is more scrutiny, and opinion, of this President than for any other President in history. As traditional news outlets struggle the dispensing of information shapes the way we perceive our world and trade opinion.

According to the Pew Research Center, “public opinion on President Obama and his major policies continues to be divided… His overall approval rating is 49 percent, which is largely unchanged from November (51 percent). However, the percentage expressing at least a fair amount of confidence in Obama to do the right thing when it comes to fixing the economy has slipped from 59 percent to 52 percent currently.

It has required a decade for my beloved New York Knicks basketball team to change the culture from that of a losing basketball franchise to one that is respectable. Barack Obama inherited more national and international crises than any President in American history. Add to that the daily scrutiny and second-guessing of the blogosphere and artificial news media led by his self-proclaimed adversaries at Fox Non-News. It will require at least a decade of progressive and fearless Presidents to change the direction of this ocean liner of a nation. January 20 was merely the first morning of a new day.

Mark Lassiter remembers how quickly his fingers went numb on January 20, 2009, despite his insulated ski gloves. His daughter’s toes are still thawing out.