WASHINGTON -- When Barack Obama became America's 44th president a year ago, he stepped into office with some highly ambitious goals. Among them: taming soaring unemployment, reforming the country's financial regulatory and health care systems, curbing greenhouse gas emissions and closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Heading into year two of his presidency, none of those goals have been met. And with Massachusetts about to send Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate, achieving them just became more difficult.