"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have"
Thomas Jefferson

Thursday, January 22, 2009

The Oath x 2

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release January 21, 2009


The following is a statement from White House Counsel Greg Craig.

"We believe that the oath of office was administered effectively and that the President was sworn in appropriately yesterday. But the oath appears in the Constitution itself. And out of an abundance of caution, because there was one word out of sequence, Chief Justice Roberts administered the oath a second time."

Barack Obama stepped on Chief Justice Roberts as he was reciting the first line of the oath for Obama to repeat. He must have failed to remember it is a "repeat after me" situation.

What would the media be saying today if Bush had done the same thing? They would have been relentless, but they must have turned the corner on congeniality.

For a safe play Obama took the oath a second time.

7 comments:

ConcernedCitizen said...

You forgot the part where they did not provide a bible. Now that will get the Evangelical wing nutter's holy pants all in a bunch. Rush won't even need any Oxy today.

Anonymous said...

During Fox News' inauguration coverage, Chris Wallace stated, "I'm not sure that Barack Obama really is the president of the United States, because the oath of office is set in the Constitution." Wallace later claimed, "I wasn't at all convinced that ... John Roberts ever got it out straight and that Barack Obama ever said the prescribed words." On Fox & Friends the following day, Fox News repeatedly aired video of the oath flub, and Gretchen Carlson asked of Obama, "Is he really president," and went on to claim, "Because there was a flub in the oath of office." However, numerous experts, including one quoted later on Fox & Friends, have reportedly said that an incorrect recitation of the oath is insignificant

Anonymous said...

i also have the sense that if bush had made a mistake of similar importance at an occasion now, the media would have been tougher on him. but it's an apples-to-oranges comparison. bush has been on the scene for 8 years now. back in 2001, bush was also being treated with kid gloves by the media -- and the same goes for every newly inaugurated president i know of. if he'd botched the oath, the response would have been the same as it is now, only fox would be bending over backwards to explain why there was no problem at all.

you republicans need to get over your persecution complex!

and iv, that's really classy that you seem to be pinning the whole affair on obama, without any mention of roberts' contribution. it looked to me like obama jumped the gun at the start, then roberts flubbed his line, then obama caught the flub and tried to nudge him into saying it again correctly, then that didn't work so well so obama just repeated the flubbed line, and that was that. if you're clever enough to see why all the blame falls on obama, then hats off to you.

you might also note that obama's subsequent comments about the flub have been nothing but classy. since i know the republicans around here don't really seem to care about anything besides class, grace, and humility, i'd think you'd all be jumping on the obama bandwagon right about now.

Earthbob said...

The ironic part about the swearing in ceremony is that both the President and Chief Justice are Harvard graduates....

City Watch said...

JCWN,

I rejected your last comment, it was irrelevant to the original post and crossed the line.

Please keep comments pertinent.

Thank You
PIV

Anonymous said...

WHAT A HACK YOU ARE ! ! !

It was the JUSTICE that misREAD the oath. The Prez hesitated to give him a chance to RE-READ the oath.

Yoou just could NOT WAIT to blame Barrack for SOMETHING, could you. Even if you had to fabricate something.

CLASSIC !

EvilJam said...

Hehe. Sucks to be a wingnut. The Oath hasn't been a requirement since, oh, Woodrow Wilson. Somewhere around there. The constitution states the president elect will become president at high noon on Jan. 20th. No mention of any oath. The oath is taken these days more as a tradition than anything else. Is NOT a requirement to be prez. That said, Obama jumped in early on the "repeat after me" thing and disrupted the good Supreme's train of thought, botching the oath. But, botched or not, Bible or not, Obama da man.

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