WASHINGTON: Barack Obama's young presidency faces the ritual 100-day judgment of the US media, an arbitrary measure set nearly 80 years ago as the country sought to claw its way out of the Great Depression.

Upon taking office in March 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt called Congress into emergency session and pushed through 15 revolutionary bills over 100 days - some sticklers say 105 - in a bid to resurrect the US economy.

The pace has never been equalled by his successors, some of whom have embraced the artificial measure, while others have tried to quiet the deafening media fanfare and the often unflattering judgments it trumpets.