The Inaugural Oath: Chief Justice Slip-Up

That’s okay – you (abcnews) spelled “inaugural” incorrectly in this headline.

I don’t think it was on purpose. He was doing it without notes.

Robert was nervous. So was Obama.
Who could imagine why?
History was being made.

Yeah, Fox News already had comments about Obama’s presidency starting out with a flubbed oath, blaming it on Obama.
Great honeymoon, huh?

“Without notes”? Who needs notes for 40 of the most famous words in American politics?

Actually the oath isn’t a constitutional requirment to become president. At the strike of noon (before the oath) Obama was already the PResident so this little muddling of oaths matters not at all

No effect. None. Obama became president at noon, Washington D.C. time, per Amendment XX, Section 1 to the Constitution. “The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January … and the terms of their
successors shall then begin.”

Ann Althouse makes a snarky takedown based on Roberts being a “Textualist” (of the USC) and then flubbing the words of the Oath (which are in the Constitution!)
Well, how about Barack Obama’s speech? I think it was fundamentally good and stirring. He made many cogent and zingy points. I wish he’d addressed the festering Israel/Palestine issue directly, insisting that both sides talk and stop their destructive ways (terrorism, settlements and oppression.) We can’t give up on that, it hurts and costs us too much. Also, nothing about healing sexual preference tensions IIRC.
BTW, buh-bye, incurious and insolent George! It feels like a suffocating, foreboding mass is lifted off me and the whole country.

once again, a child could have done easily something completely beyond the grasp of a republican.

John Roberts was a great co-pilot in Airplane!.

The mistake was when he called Obama as “Senator”. When the noon is passed, President-elect become automatically President without taking oath. Calling him Senator was mistake.

Krud, I am simply trying to correct the factual record. Besides, the Dems would be all over this blaming Dubya for a lack of intelligence if this had happened when Dubya took the oath!

Karen -
If you read the transcript, you’d find that it was Roberts who made the initial mistake. Once again, you Republicans are blaming others for your own screw-ups. (And I apologize in advance for my causing your illiteracy.)
And if W had screwed it up in 2001 and 2005, y’all would be blaming it on Clinton, just as you did with everything else.
The Party of Personal Responsibility? Not in this plane of reality, I’m afraid.

Bush really upheld his oath of office? Word-perfectness doesn’t matter, the proof will be if Obama does indeed preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.

As HappyHorse admits: “I think it all went off script when Obama started to reply and Roberts carried on.”

Did Roberts just marry Obama and the US?
“So help you God”?!?!?
That’s not a part of the OFFICIAL oath.
It’s a part of wedding ceremony oaths.
What a maroon…
Will Obama have to get a divorce when he leaves office at the end of his term/s??

Can this stop now?…In Mr Obama’s first luncheon as president, the affable Justice Roberts appeared to apologise, prompting laughter and a handshake from Mr Obama.

No, Republicans should be blamed for EVERYTHING. Period.

The stumbling on the oath is insignificant, of course. What IS significant is that some people are trying to make an issue of it. Grow up, would you? Roberts said “President to the United States…”. Seriously, one is a professional orator who delivered a flawless 20 minute inagural speech, the other is a judge. Who do you think screwed this up?

Doubt it was purposeful. Barack jumped the gun a little bit at the beginning of the speech. I think it was just an exciting moment for everyone. Cut them some slack.

A professional orator when there is a teleprompter in front of him. Thank -you for acknowledging his qualifications to hold the office of president though.
Former Marine, I think we should blame not only all republicans for everything, but all democrats too. After all, both completely corrupt parties have sold us down the river and all of you D & R sheep keep voting them right back in, genius!

First I would suggest stop playing so many video games! Second, I blame both parties for slot of the mess we’re in!!! But take a deep breath and realize that the wars are also a direct result of your other boy bubba too busy with monica to take his watch seriously!!! To slam the chief justice because everyone was nervous on a monumental day is simply moronic!!! Sorry some of us were busy keeping your butt safe, to email congress every 5 minutes or helping acorn!!!

When will you liberals ever get a clue????????
Its not Consttutitonally VALID unless the oath is repeated exactly right!!!!!11!! Technicaly, this presidentsy is NULL and VOID!!!!
Score 1 for Roberts!!
This combine with the fake berth certificat will eventually get B. Hussane OUT OF OUR WHITEHOUSE!!!!!!!!!1!

No doubt in my mind that Roberts did it on purpose. First, his cadence was designed to get Obama to start restating the oath before Roberts was actually finished with his phrasing, so that he kept walking all over Obama’s words and interrupting his thought pattern. Then he puts words out of order, which to me is incomprehensible since he is READING THE DAMN THING. Especially since he had to know that Obama had the REAL oath memorized and that inverting words would likely screw him up and make it seem like Obama was at fault. What a jerk.

Chief Justice Roberts appeared quite inappropriate in starting the swearing in by saying: “Are you ready to take the oath, Senator?” His tone of voice also seemed hostile. I’m sure there is no love lost between the President and the Chief Justice but even so one would think that on this occasion, like Chief Justices before him, the present Chief Justice would show some class. Amazingly, no news media have commented on this. Compare how Associate Justice John Paul Stevens handled the swearing in of Vice-President Biden who, in another incarnation, was also a Senator.

The barrenness of the right wing argument is on full display here. These people are falling over themselves to criticize the president’s response to their own chief justice’s flubbing in reciting the oath of office to the man to be sworn in. What a pathetic, dingy dump the average right wing mind is.

Doug Markell.. you want us to give Hussein the same support that YOU gave Bush? If we had done that the whole crowd would have LAUGHED at him for not being smart enough to repeat a few words.

When I was married I repeated what was said, if the Preacher had said: “With this ring I wed thee” that is what I would have said. If Barrack Hussein Obama had been meant to memorize the words Justice Roberts would not have been there.

Pyrotechny: does it matter at all to you that Roberts himself at the luncheon that followed the innauguration that it was HE who screwed up??????

The odd thing about conservatives critiquing Obama taking the oath is that all he had to do was repeat after Justice Roberts. If Justice Roberts administers the oath wrong, I really don’t think anyone can say it was the President’s fault and thus he isn’t really president.
Certainly minor compared to being elected by Supreme Court decision.

People give it a break!!! This bickering back and forth and trying to show your intelligence over dumb stuff is ridiculous. People like you are tearing the country apart. Stop calling people morons and idiots because their opinion is different than yours. Is this not America? We can have a different opinions, but does it have to be communicated through hatred, and division?Calling each other names? Who in the world do you think you are that you can spill this hatred to other Americans? I wish there is a country or a rock that some of you can live, so that the remaining Americans can live peacefully together!

The oath of office isn’t required to be President. Chris is partially correct in that Obama became President at 12:00, 20 January, 2009 regardless of the oath. However, the oath IS required before the President can discharge his duties AS President. I’ll offer the case of President Zachary Taylor. He refused to “swear” in the oath and it took 24 hours to research the legalities to determine if he could legally “affirm”. President Polk had resigned effective at noon on March 4th 1849. Some other guy had laid claim to be the President until such time as Taylor took the Oath. It was determined that Taylor was in fact President at noon on the 4th but powerless until noon on the 5th of March when he finally took the oath.
It’s my understanding that twice in history, the incoming President made a mistake in the oath and re-took the oath a few minutes later behind the scenes to make it legal.

Here’s the mistake boys and girls, in Obama’s first lines of his address he said “44 people” have taken the oath. WRONG SUCKA – 43!!!

Easy…you libs are so nasty with your comments…They both screwed up! Obama started repeating before Roberts was finished with the first line; Roberts then rearranged the wording; Obama recognized it but still says “faithfully” at the end. All eyes were on both of them and that would make most people a little nervous. Start the healing and quit bitchin’!

Did anyone notice that Barack Obama went on to make his inaugural address, speaking for 18 minutes without notes? We have a president who knows what he has to say. I’m proud of him, and there were lots of moments in his address when I cried out “YES”.

Wow! Honestly? One shouldn’t bash others who they don’t know because of a disagreement in beliefs, especially if one is not intelligent to use proper spelling. Isn’t everyone entitled to their opinion? Seems that is the only thing we are not entitled to anymore. They both flubbed. BriC is right -after the correction by Roberts, the President still messed it up. All I’ve heard is how we have made a monumental step, but somehow all I hear is the same hateful rhetoric…

Seriously people, get over it. Roberts was nervous and stumbled, and Obama got thrown off by it. Things like that happen when you’re on live international TV in the middle of an historic event.

the president should be fired along with his chief of united state and put joahn macain and sara pailen in his office