Obama sworn in again - second time lucky

[Marc Vaughan]

How come i haven't heard about this more over here? (apparently its big news/amusement value in the UK that they got the swearing in ceremony wrong - but I haven't seen anything at all about it until a friend back home mentioned it).

President Barack Obama Sworn In Second Time

[Dr. Sak]

Because it wasn't Bush. If Bush would have had a mishap like that it would've been all over the news with everyone mocking him.

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

Wasn't it Roberts who screwed up?

[Neuqua]

Yeah, Roberts misplaced a few words and caught Obama by surprise. Then when Roberts tried correcting himself, he still got it wrong.

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by Ronnie Dobbs2

Wasn't it Roberts who screwed up?

Wasn't trying to blame anyone in particular - more surprise that the press here didn't report on it for amusement/gossip factor - as thats what its being played for back in Europe.

Heck if Britney gets out of a car with her knickers showing it pops up on Fox News, but something like this doesn't? ...

[jeff061]

Yeah it was Roberts, not Bush.

Besides, Bush is a goofy retard, of course people are going to chuckle at him more than a person of more average intelligence.

[Dr. Sak]

Originally Posted by jeff061

Yeah it was Roberts, not Bush.

Besides, Bush is a goofy retard, of course people are going to chuckle at him more than a person of more average intelligence.

I'm not saying you are wrong (yeah I know it was Roberts not OBAMA ) but Bush would've still been the butt of the joke if the roles were reversed.

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

Wasn't trying to blame anyone in particular - more surprise that the press here didn't report on it for amusement/gossip factor - as thats what its being played for back in Europe.

I was referring to the Roberts screw up to retort the "Bush would have been murdered over this Obama is teh One!!one11!" reply.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Dr. Sak

Because it wasn't Bush. If Bush would have had a mishap like that it would've been all over the news with everyone mocking him.

Yes, that was it

It was just media flunkies who are the reason why Bush had a mispeak-a-day calendar whereas Obama would have "good quotes/rhetoric" one. It had nothing to do with the fact that he really wasn't a very good speaker.

SI

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Ronnie Dobbs2

Wasn't it Roberts who screwed up?

They both did. President Obama tried to start saying the oath before Chief Justice Roberts was finished with the first statement ("I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear"), and then CJ Roberts forgot "faithfully" and then President Obama stopped in that phrase and they went on from there.

[PackerFanatic]

OBAMA SWEARS IN...FAITHFULLY from FOD Team

[Dr. Sak]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Yes, that was it

It was just media flunkies who are the reason why Bush had a mispeak-a-day calendar whereas Obama would have "good quotes/rhetoric" one. It had nothing to do with the fact that he really wasn't a very good speaker.

SI

Wow you really overreacted on that one. You can't honestly say that if that would've happened to Bush; SNL or any one of the comedy central shows wouldn't have had field day?

I KNOW Bush wasn't a good speaker. I also laughed at those jokes and his mishaps. But I should just shut up now because I dont want to get the dreaded rolleyes again from you when I am trying to make a joke. Please forgive me for that.

[Neuqua]

Originally Posted by Dr. Sak

I KNOW Bush wasn't a good speaker. I also laughed at those jokes and his mishaps. But I should just shut up now because I dont want to get the dreaded rolleyes again from you when I am trying to make a joke. Please forgive me for that.

[lordscarlet]

Originally Posted by Dr. Sak

Wow you really overreacted on that one. You can't honestly say that if that would've happened to Bush; SNL or any one of the comedy central shows wouldn't have had field day?

I KNOW Bush wasn't a good speaker. I also laughed at those jokes and his mishaps. But I should just shut up now because I dont want to get the dreaded rolleyes again from you when I am trying to make a joke. Please forgive me for that.

SNL hasn't aired yet, you never know.

[lungs]

I bet he screwed up the first oath intentionally so he could do another one behind closed doors with his hand on the Koran and 'so help me Allah' replacing 'so help me God'.

[Maple Leafs]

So wait, now he can't run for a second term right?

[Young Drachma]

Calvin Coolidge was sworn in twice, too, FWIW. There is precedent.

Succession to the Presidency

On August 2, 1923, President Harding died while on a speaking tour in California.[84] Vice-President Coolidge was in Vermont visiting his family home, which did not have electricity or a telephone, when he received word by messenger of Harding's death.[85] Coolidge dressed, said a prayer, and came downstairs to greet the reporters who had assembled.[85] His father, a notary public, administered the oath of office in the family's parlor by the light of a kerosene lamp at 2:47 a.m. on August 3, 1923; Coolidge then went back to bed. Coolidge returned to Washington the next day, and was re-sworn by Justice A. A. Hoehling of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, as there was some confusion over whether a state notary public had the authority to administer the presidential oath.[86]

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Neuqua

Yeah, Roberts misplaced a few words and caught Obama by surprise.

Yep, right after Obama jumped the gun & caught Roberts by surprise.

Oddly enough, although I'm not finding them now when I Google, the initial AP accounts put the blame on Obama getting ahead of Roberts to start the whole screw up.

[Telle]

They were talking about it here on the radio the next morning.

[JediKooter]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

Calvin Coolidge was sworn in twice, too, FWIW. There is precedent.

Coolidge and another president were sworn in twice, the other one (not Obama) is escaping me at the moment.

[Dr. Sak]

Chester A Arthur

[SFL Cat]

Since Obama didn't use a bible the second time, does that mean a threepeat?

[Samdari]

Originally Posted by SFL Cat

Since Obama didn't use a bible the second time, does that mean a threepeat?

The bible is not prescribed by the constitution, nor have all presidents used one.

The exact words of the oath are prescribed by the constitution, and all presidents have used them.

"So help me God" is also not prescribed by the constitution, but there is apparently no prohibition against uttering extraneous words at the end of the official oath. One could say "So help me Carrot Top" and still be president.

And I bet SNL ends this silly debate by leading with a swearing in, stumbling over words skit.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Samdari

And I bet SNL ends this silly debate by leading with a swearing in, stumbling over words skit.

{snaps fingers} I've got it !

Have "Roberts" & "Obama" start going through the process just fine, no problems until Chevy Chase pratfalls through the scene ending with him crashing through podium. As the camera pulls back, we see what caused Chevy to trip & fall, a set of prop letters forming the words "do solemnly swear".

Get it, he literally trips over the words.

Gold I tell you, comedy gold.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Get it, he literally trips over the words.

Gold I tell you, comedy gold.

Or a faithful reenactment of the Bush Administration.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

Or a faithful reenactment of the Bush Administration.

Actually I considered having Chevy dressed as W. but figured it'd be overkill.

[larrymcg421]

I think "If it was Bush, the media would've" should be made available as a default macro with all new editions of Microsoft Office to save our conservative friends some time.

[Samdari]

Originally Posted by Maple Leafs

So wait, now he can't run for a second term right?

"No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. "

Despite the administration of the oath twice, he was still elected only once, and did not serve two years in between oath takings. Thus, he appears to be eligible to run again, sorry.

Most of the stuff I read seems to indicate that all legal folks seem to agree that as per teh 20th amedment, he was president at noon, irrespective of the oath. They did not agree whether the oath was even still strictly necesary, or merely ceremonial.

[Subby]

January 22, 2009
Op-Ed Contributor

Oaf of Office
By STEVEN PINKER

IN 1969, Neil Armstrong appeared to have omitted an indefinite article as he stepped onto the moon and left earthlings puzzled over the difference between “man” and “mankind.” In 1980, Jimmy Carter, accepting his party’s nomination, paid homage to a former vice president he called Hubert Horatio Hornblower. A year later, Diana Spencer reversed the first two names of her betrothed in her wedding vows, and thus, as Prince Charles Philip supposedly later joked, actually married his father.

On Tuesday, Chief Justice John Roberts joined the Flubber Hall of Fame when he administered the presidential oath of office apparently without notes. Instead of having Barack Obama “solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States,” Chief Justice Roberts had him “solemnly swear that I will execute the office of president to the United States faithfully.” When Mr. Obama paused after “execute,” the chief justice prompted him to continue with “faithfully the office of president of the United States.” (To ensure that the president was properly sworn in, the chief justice re-administered the oath Wednesday evening.)

How could a famous stickler for grammar have bungled that 35-word passage, among the best-known words in the Constitution? Conspiracy theorists and connoisseurs of Freudian slips have surmised that it was unconscious retaliation for Senator Obama’s vote against the chief justice’s confirmation in 2005. But a simpler explanation is that the wayward adverb in the passage is blowback from Chief Justice Roberts’s habit of grammatical niggling.

Language pedants hew to an oral tradition of shibboleths that have no basis in logic or style, that have been defied by great writers for centuries, and that have been disavowed by every thoughtful usage manual. Nonetheless, they refuse to go away, perpetuated by the Gotcha! Gang and meekly obeyed by insecure writers.

Among these fetishes is the prohibition against “split verbs,” in which an adverb comes between an infinitive marker like “to,” or an auxiliary like “will,” and the main verb of the sentence. According to this superstition, Captain Kirk made a grammatical error when he declared that the five-year mission of the starship Enterprise was “to boldly go where no man has gone before”; it should have been “to go boldly.” Likewise, Dolly Parton should not have declared that “I will always love you” but “I always will love you” or “I will love you always.”

Any speaker who has not been brainwashed by the split-verb myth can sense that these corrections go against the rhythm and logic of English phrasing. The myth originated centuries ago in a thick-witted analogy to Latin, in which it is impossible to split an infinitive because it consists of a single word, like dicere, “to say.” But in English, infinitives like “to go” and future-tense forms like “will go” are two words, not one, and there is not the slightest reason to interdict adverbs from the position between them.

Though the ungrammaticality of split verbs is an urban legend, it found its way into The Texas Law Review Manual on Style, which is the arbiter of usage for many law review journals. James Lindgren, a critic of the manual, has found that many lawyers have “internalized the bogus rule so that they actually believe that a split verb should be avoided,” adding, “The Invasion of the Body Snatchers has succeeded so well that many can no longer distinguish alien speech from native speech.”

In his legal opinions, Chief Justice Roberts has altered quotations to conform to his notions of grammaticality, as when he excised the “ain’t” from Bob Dylan’s line “When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose.” On Tuesday his inner copy editor overrode any instincts toward strict constructionism and unilaterally amended the Constitution by moving the adverb “faithfully” away from the verb.

President Obama, whose attention to language is obvious in his speeches and writings, smiled at the chief justice’s hypercorrection, then gamely repeated it. Let’s hope that during the next four years he will always challenge dogma and boldly lead the nation in new directions.

Steven Pinker is a psychology professor at Harvard and the chairman of the usage panel of The American Heritage Dictionary.

[Mustang]

Originally Posted by larrymcg421

I think "If it was Bush, the media would've" should be made available as a default macro with all new editions of Microsoft Office to save our conservative friends some time.

I would say just replace the "It is all Bush's fault" macro, but I'm sure that one will still get used.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Mustang

I would say just replace the "It is all Bush's fault" macro, but I'm sure that one will still get used.

For at least the next four years, kind of like blaming being 40 games under .500 on the predecessor even when you've brought in all new players.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by larrymcg421

I think "If it was Bush, the media would've" should be made available as a default macro with all new editions of Microsoft Office to save our conservative friends some time.

They can put it next to their "but but but... CLINTON!!!" macro.

[gstelmack]

Not nearly enough discussion either about how W's term ended at noon, but Obama wasn't sworn in until 12:05, letting this country go 5 minutes without a chief executive. How did we EVER survive?

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

For at least the next four years, kind of like blaming being 40 games under .500 on the predecessor even when you've brought in all new players.

I don't quite think that's a fair analogy as the players represent both the people and problems. The people have changed but the problems still exist- so the "all new players" is only half right.'

SI

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

Not nearly enough discussion either about how W's term ended at noon, but Obama wasn't sworn in until 12:05, letting this country go 5 minutes without a chief executive. How did we EVER survive?

I'm pretty sure there's an actual specific something that covers this situation, but darned if I remember what it is.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Subby

January 22, 2009
Op-Ed Contributor

Oaf of Office
By STEVEN PINKER

...

My wife pointed this out (she's an editor)- it was all about not splitting the infinitive. And, if Roberts is a grammar guy- then that explains this situation quite well. That said, I don't buy the author's explanation of split infinitives- it's more complicated than that (heck, wikipedia has a giant page on the matter including lots of possible origins). I think he's just one of those crusading grammar "progressives" who is trying to get rid of useful things like the serial comma.

SI

[flere-imsaho]

I believe according to the 20th amendment the oath is kind of a formality. The incumbent's term ends at noon, and the next president's begins at noon, oath or no oath.

I imagine it was put in there to ensure that no shenanigans could take place to stop the transfer of power.

SORRY ABOUT THAT DICK CHENEY!!! GOOD IDEA ANYWAY!!!

[larrymcg421]

The terrorists did not anticipate the 5 minute window of a constitutional crisis and thus did not strike to take advantage of the situation.

EPIC JIHAD FAIL.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

I believe according to the 20th amendment the oath is kind of a formality. The incumbent's term ends at noon, and the next president's begins at noon, oath or no oath.

I imagine it was put in there to ensure that no shenanigans could take place to stop the transfer of power.

SORRY ABOUT THAT DICK CHENEY!!! GOOD IDEA ANYWAY!!!

As I pointed out in the Inauguration thread, have you made sure to check the Executive Orders just to make sure such a change hasn't been made?

SI

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

As I pointed out in the Inauguration thread, have you made sure to check the Executive Orders just to make sure such a change hasn't been made?

I think you've hit on the truth here, actually.

Clearly this is the reason why Obama's first action was to call a halt to Bush's executive orders. Originally Cheney had planned to jump up at this point in the proceedings and say "AHAHA NO! I CHANGE THE LAWS!" but he threw out his back moving boxes of confidential papers to the shredders last night and so was too injured to jump out of his wheelchair.

To which I say: AHAHA EPIC IRONIC KARMA FAIL DICK CHENEY!!!!!

[Samdari]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

I believe according to the 20th amendment the oath is kind of a formality. The incumbent's term ends at noon, and the next president's begins at noon, oath or no oath.

I imagine it was put in there to ensure that no shenanigans could take place to stop the transfer of power.

SORRY ABOUT THAT DICK CHENEY!!! GOOD IDEA ANYWAY!!!

Apparently there is some debate about this.

All agree the 20th amendment specifies Obama's term began at noon.

However, not all agree that the oath is a mere formality, as the 20th amendment only refers to the term, but does not specifically supercede the original requirement that he take the oath before execution of his office.

Amazing the things we (Americans, not FOFC) will find to argue about.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

I'm pretty sure there's an actual specific something that covers this situation, but darned if I remember what it is.

I think I heard somewhere that Biden was President for a minute, because he was sworn in and then Obama had to be.

[LloydLungs]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

I believe according to the 20th amendment the oath is kind of a formality. The incumbent's term ends at noon, and the next president's begins at noon, oath or no oath.

Okay, fine, but then who was president AT EXACTLY 12:00:00???

Ooooooo....

[JediKooter]

Originally Posted by LloydLungs

Okay, fine, but then who was president AT EXACTLY 12:00:00???

Ooooooo....

Pfft...easy one. It's whoever was the highest ranking Illuminati at the time.

[Samdari]

Originally Posted by LloydLungs

Okay, fine, but then who was president AT EXACTLY 12:00:00???

Ooooooo....

Unm, you do realize the text you quoted actually answers your question.

[LloydLungs]

Originally Posted by Samdari

Unm, you do realize the text you quoted actually answers your question.

Not really -- it just says one presidency ends at noon and the other begins at noon. Technically the outgoing president's term should end at the final split second of 11:59:59. But it says noon, the same time period when the next presidency begins. Nothing more specific is given, leaving that 12:00:00 mark up for debate.

It's possible I've over-thought this.

[Vegas Vic]

On a related note:

A Small Biden Moment, a Cool Obama Reaction

WASHINGTON (AP) — No joke: Barack Obama had to take the presidential oath twice. No, seriously, Joe, no joke.

One of the small but memorable moments to emerge from Obama's first full day in office on Wednesday came when Vice President Joe Biden offered up a quip that did not seem to thrill his new boss. Those who have followed the vice president's long career as a senator chalked it up to Biden being Biden.

The scene happened when Obama asked Biden to swear in some senior staff members of the new administration.

"Am I doing this again?" Biden said. He was apparently referring to the fact that he had already sworn in members of Obama's Cabinet earlier in the day, including some people who were in the room in front of him at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

"For the senior staff," Obama clarified. "For the senior staff, all right," Biden responded.

And then Biden said this: "My memory is not as good as Justice Roberts, Chief Justice Roberts." The line drew an "oooh" from the audience, the kind one gets after serving up a zinger.

Chief Justice John Roberts, as millions of people saw on Tuesday, had slightly flubbed Obama's original oath, which prompted Obama to do the same.

Obama did not laugh or even smile at Biden's line. His look and body language were serious. Cable news outlets replayed the moment prominently.

Biden is known for sometimes getting himself in trouble with his words — or as critics would say, shooting from the lip. Obama knows this, saying Biden has a penchant for "rhetorical flourishes."

What most people didn't know then was that Obama, in fact, was going to have a rare do-over of the oath Wednesday night.

Roberts came by the White House to deliver the oath to Obama again — flawlessly — out of what the White House called an abundance of caution.

Apparently there's a time and a place for jokes, because Obama offered one himself.

He told reporters in the Map Room for the brief ceremony that he and Roberts were going through the drill again because the first time was "so much fun."

The do-overs only went so far. Obama did not re-sign the executive orders he issued on Wednesday before taking the oath a second time.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said that step was not necessary because the White House counsel's office still considers that Obama "was sworn in appropriately and effectively" the first time.

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

I thought the Daily Show was pretty funny on this (starting at 1:05)


The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c
Obama Closing Gitmo

Barack Obama Interview
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