Earlier today President Barack Obama and Chief Justice John Roberts had a oath of office redo in the White House’s Map Room. Constitutionally President Obama became POTUS Tuesday at noon, but constitutional scholars also pointed out that the oath of office is also a constitutional requirement… so what happens when the Chief Justice and the Commander in Chief fumble the words? In reality nothing would have come of it, but it seems like they played it on the safe side. And thank the gods for that because could you imagine the right wing banter we would have to endure for 4 years about him not having been sworn in properly?
Comments are closed.
I do hope that the Chief Justice left out the "So help me God" part this time, since it is NOT a part of the Constitutionally-prescribed oath (see Article 2, Section 1).
Oh, please. These words were at Obama's request. He's your candidate–live with it. If it's that important to you to have someone who won't use those words, run a pagan for President.
We do know it was done without a Bible.
OH WOW! I didn't even realize that! And this is technically the one that counts since it was meant as a safeguard against the faulty one!
Well, I'll try again since my previous comment was deleted. "So help me God" was Obama's request. Get over it. If you don't like the language run a pagan for President.
Bladerunner,
I can assure you wholeheartedly that neither I nor any editor here at LOC deleted your comment. I was just talking to Chris today about the pros and cons of our new layout as well as the intense debate function. Unfortunately we've encountered a few problems regarding our commenting system that we are diligently working on to solve and I apologize for your lost comment. I remember reading it too so sorry about that.
I am really glad that Obama retook the oath. It was really funny though how they both fumbled the words the first time around. Could the president actually be considered not a president if he was sworn in incorrectly.