Well, at least he isn't suggesting renaming the Tets Harano tunnel.

But Magic Island?

It's as if Mayor Mufi Hannemann is doing "recession Christmas shopping" like the rest of us and digging around the hall closet to see what's already there that can be shined up a bit and re-gifted.

There isn't much in the City Hall closet. Some homeless camps at city beach parks, graffiti-covered Wailupe Elementary, and the Frank Fasi Municipal Building, already named after Frank Fasi. Given the choices of city properties, Magic Island is probably the best of the bunch, especially since there are recent photos of the Obamas having a picnic there. Can't find much of an Obama tie-in to a nouveau-Dickey Kapolei office building. A train station would be too on-the-nose.

But Magic Island?

Underneath the blue tarps and illegal structures, the litter and broken bottles, the fetid bathrooms and stinking fish ponds, lies a really nice beach park, the kind of place families love to visit if they can actually find parking or manage to sneak over from Ala Moana Center without getting busted by mall parking security. It's a lovely place if you can ignore the unlovely parts, but a whispering-surf, no-footprints, private paradise it is not.

In defending (he would say explaining) his proposal, Hannemann took the unusual step of writing a letter to the editor. He said he's recommending the city council rename 'Äina Moana Beach Park (which is the official name, though nobody calls it that) President Barack Obama Beach Park at Magic Island, though nobody has to call it that because "you can still call it Magic Island."

"This is not political, not Republican, not Democrat," he wrote. "This is simply a city letting the world know it is proud to be the hometown of the president of the United States."

Except that anything involving the president is political, and anything involving Hannemann is always, always political.

Hannemann was in Washington, D.C., yesterday to meet with federal officials on rail issues and, oh, to attend a White House reception hosted by Obama. It's always nice to bring the host a little gift from home. But Magic Island? Why not just some chocolate-covered mac nuts?

If Hannemann waits until he's governor, he can rename an entire island after his good friend Barry. And maybe by then, Obama will have a long list of accomplishments beyond being elected president to fill out the ribbon-cutting, maile lei-untying speech.