Posted on 01/20/2009 8:49:03 PM PST by DouglasKC
Have you heard?
Chief Justice Roberts mixed some words around in the Presidential oath that Presidents take upon assuming the office.
The oath should read as follows:
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
It seems that Chief Justice Roberts put the word "faithfully" in the wrong place. It was then repeated incorrectly by Mr. Obama.
Should we give Mr. Obama a pass?
I don't think so. And I'll explain why.
Mr. Obama should have known the oath backwards and forwards. He is a constitutional scholar. He must have studied the oath. He surely was briefed on the correct wording.
If you watch the swearing in, it seems certain that Mr. Obama realizes that Chief Justice Roberts has stated the oath wrong. Yet.
Yet Mr. Obama repeats it back, wrong also.
What does this show? We have two possiblities.
The first is that Mr. Obama really didn't know the oath. He never memorized it. He didn't know that the words were mixed up. As stated previously this isn't really plausible. He knew it.
The second option is rather unsettling. Mr. Obama knew the oath. He knew it backward and forward. He knew the right and proper wording specified by the Constitution of the United States. Yet he repeated back the error.
No big deal?
Think about it. This was Mr. Obama's very first act as President. It was a relatively high pressure situation. Around the world there were millions of eyes focused on him. Expectations were high. Nerves, no doubt, were on edge. Yet, when faced with standing up for the right wording, he folded. He agreed with error.
Now maybe he did this to save Chief Justice Roberts from an embarrassing situation. Maybe he did it to prevent himself from appearing "wrong" to the public. Maybe he just wanted to put forth the appearance that everything went smoothly. But are these the attributes we want in a President?
We want the President to be a leader. We want him to stand up for what's right even when everybody else is wrong. We want him to make the decision in the most pressure packed situations. We want him to uphold the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.
Yet at his very first opportunity he decided that getting along at the moment was more important than a constitutional requirement.
It's going to be a long four, or eight, years.
I have no idea. It was also kind of weird that the oath wasn't done until after noon. If I remember correctly isn't the oath usually done just before noon so that you have pledged before you actually become President?
Its sort of related to what would happen after noon on the 20th if we were Pearl Harbored but the ceremony was behind schedule and the new President had not be sworn in - who is President, do we even have a President.
ABC (yeah I know, not my favorite source either) said the consensus among legal scholars was that the new President takes office at noon, oath or no oath.
That’s better than the other choice that if the new VP has been sworn - he would be acting President until the new President completed the ceremony.
Exactly: he’ll get all the free passes W got.
I expect his inner Kleagle arced out...
Obama interrupted Chief Justice Roberts FIRST!!!
Obama made the first mistake. He was giggling before the swearing in like a clown. Then he interrupted Roberts which lead to Roberts being thrown.
He was giggling before he started. The whole ceremony was a joke to Clown Hussein. He was laughing when the swearing in first started and then HE INTERRUPTED the Chief Justice.
Lowery screwed up too... My grandma taught me that it goes like this: “If it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down.”
That's my point. He let the situation get to him. He's been in the public eye for years. He's been before huge crowds. Yet when the opportunity to do the right thing presented itself, he punted. If he can't do or say the right thing in this innocuous situation then what is he going to do when there's something really on the line?
lol
Yep, threw Roberts off his game, RIGHT ON THE FIRST LINE!
Oh, and I’d like to say something to anyone who might criticize my dipiction of it as “just a ceremony” by saying it’s part of the Constitution and if we ignore one part of the Constitution it endangers all the other parts, and so on. The Constitution does not say that the president has to be sworn in by the Chief Justice on the steps of the Capitol building (or wherever) in front of millions of people. All it says is that he has to take the oath.
To my mind, that means he could say it to himself as he’s drifting off to sleep. But no, these politicians have to makie a big display of everything, and we all have to pause in the middle of our lives to listen to them say a sentence.
Especially if we hyper-focus on things like this. Our nation is under attack and the best we can do is complain about the way the President took the oath. Flame me if you will but I see this as absurdly trivial.
flubbed the oath of office... and that just the start.. rofl
Yet he could not save his oath...made a fool of himself.
It was an EPIC FAIL.
And I am laughing my arse off, and will mock him to everyone I meet from this day forward.
Would Bush have been given a pass?
Yeah, we know the answer to that.
My recollection of the color commentary from 1988 was that the media proclaimed Dan Quayle to be the Acting President for a few minutes before Bush 41 took the oath.
Today the media made it a point that the oath was essentially irrelevant or ceremonial.
Well again here's the point. He knew what was right. But in a pressure situation he went along with error to get out of the situation. It's telling.
His word means absolutely nothing.
Nothing.
The man has no self-respect.
None.
.
I think Hoover simply stated “I do” when he was sworn in 80 years ago.
I agree. Attacking someone for typical human errors makes us look small and petty. We do not need an Olbermann branch of conservatism.
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