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January 22, 2009
Nice try, conservatives!
So, President Obama's inauguration went off without any major glitches. No crazies with hand grenades, or shoes, or anything else. But ol' Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts did his very best to scupper the proceedings. The conservative Chief Justice misread the oath of office:
On Tuesday Mr Roberts had made a clear mistake, rearranging the order of words in the phrase "... that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States".
Mr Obama spotted the blunder and waited for the judge to correct himself, which he did, putting "faithfully" in the right place but without repeating "execute".
But Mr Obama then repeated Mr Roberts' original, incorrect version.
Now, the Constitution specifically defines what the oath of office is supposed to be. There's plenty of yahoos who say Obama can't be president because of x, or y, or z. All they need is another thing - he didn't take the proper oath of office! So, better safe than sorry, right?
After the flub heard around the world, President Barack Obama has taken the oath of office. Again. Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the oath to Obama on Wednesday night at the White House — a rare do-over. The surprise moment came in response to Tuesday's much-noticed stumble, when Roberts got the words of the oath a little off, which prompted Obama to do so, too.
Don't worry, the White House says: Obama has still been president since noon on Inauguration Day.
Nevertheless, Obama and Roberts went through the drill again out of what White House counsel Greg Craig called "an abundance of caution."
This time, the scene was the White House Map Room in front of a small group of reporters, not the Capitol platform before the whole watching world.
But guess what? They didn't use a Bible this time! Now, there is no legal requirement to use a Bible, and several presidents did not use Bibles at their inaugurations.
Over-under on when a lawsuit will be filed about this: seven days.
entry no. 1281
Posted at January 22, 2009 10:34 PM