Thursday, January 22, 2009

Exifaith Cutefully

If you were following the inauguration (and you may not have been, the ratings were high but not historic) you probably noticed a little problem with the swearing-in ceremony.

ROBERTS: I, Barack Hussein Obama --
OBAMA: I, Barack --
ROBERTS: -- do solemnly swear --
OBAMA: I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear --
ROBERTS: -- that I will execute the office of president to the United States faithfully.
OBAMA: -- that I will execute --
ROBERTS: -- the offi -- faithfully the pres -- the office of president of the United States.
OBAMA: -- the office of president of the United States faithfully.
See, the order of the words there? It's supposed to be "faithfully execute." If you're the kind of person who insists that a short-form birth certificate is no proof of citizenship, that kind of detail can be very comforting.

My first paranoid thought is Justice Roberts was messing with Obama, or trying to lay the groundwork for some byzantine deal whereby Norm Coleman could get the Minnesota senate seat. But it's just as likely it was a mistake. Maybe Roberts didn't practice the night before.

It's a mostly moot point now, because a day later the two got together again and retook the oath. I'm saying "mostly" because obviously there are going to be some tinfoil hat types who will insist that the second time doesn't count and Obama isn't president until we have another election. I'm glad to let them have fresh material anyway, because the certificate thing was gettin' stale fast.

UPDATE: Speak of the devil in the details!

Today on his new Fox News show, Glenn Beck panicked about the re-do oath of office President Obama took last night, because Obama did not place his hand on a Bible. “I checked. We have never had a president sworn into office without a Bible,” he intoned dramatically.
The posting points out, by the way, that Teddy Roosevelt and John Quincy Adams swore in on non-bibles; plus Lyndon Johnson is rumored to have sworn in on a catholic missel because it was an emergency. So Beck is excited about nothin'.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Let's parse this:

1. Obama was elected President.
2. Constitutional rules state the presidency automatically transfers at noon on January 20th.
3. A different rule states the incoming president must take the oath.
5. Obama failed to correctly recite the oath.
6. Therefore, Obama is not president.

This is, I think, "denying the anticedent," a classic fallacy.

Publius said...

He retook the oath. I've no problem with a mere mistake.

piker62 said...

Interesting, Pub. What if he hadn't retaken the oath?

Ted said...

Take the test.

FIRST QUESTION: Who IS the actual and lawful 44th President of the USA?

ANSWER: Joe Biden

Biden was initially the Acting President for at least 5 minutes under either the Constitution’s Article 2 or the Constitution’s 20th Amendment, from 12:00 Noon 1/20/09, having already taken his Oath of Office and before Obama completed his ‘oath’ at approximately 12:05 PM, 1/20/09. Under the 20th Amendment if the President-elect shall have failed to qualify, or alternatively under Article 2 if the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term, being 12:00 Noon 1/20/09, which ability and/or qualification includes that he take the Article 2 oath “before he enter on the execution of his office,” then either the Presidency shall devolve on the Vice President under Article 2 or the Vice President shall act as President under the 20th Amendment. (The importance of the oath in ‘commencing’ an ‘Obama Presidency’ — rather than merely the 1/20/09 Noon time — is confirmed by the re-take of the ‘oath’ by Obama at the White House on 1/21/09 after the first ‘oath’ was NOT administered by Justice Roberts NOR recited by Obama in the words as required under Article 2.)

This is significant because at such time that the Supreme Court finally rules on the merits on Obama’s disqualification as not being an Article 2 “natural born citizen” (clearly he is NOT), Biden’s automatic status (without needing to take a separate Presidential Oath) of being President would be predicated upon four different bases: First, having been Vice President under Article 2; second, having been Vice President-elect under the 20th Amendment; third, having been actual President in the hiatus before Obama took the ‘oath(s)’; and fourth, retroactively deemed President during the full period of the Obama usurpation so that the acts of the Federal Government under the usurpation can be deemed authorized and/or ratified by Biden’s legitimacy.

SECOND QUESTION: Who will be the 45th President?

ANSWER: Hillary Clinton

One must assume that Bill and Hillary Clinton have been aware of all of the above. Biden’s wife recently “let the cat out of the bag” on the Oprah Show that both Biden and Hillary had considered alternatively Veep or Secretary of State, in either case, setting up Hillary to be President on a vote of the Democratic Congress if need be.

THIRD QUESTION: Is Obama an unwitting victim of this troika or a knowing participant?

ANSWER: Yet undetermined.

piker62 said...

Ted, I have to disagree with your premise. If you're including Temp VPs in the count, doesn't that make Biden #60 or something?

And mind you don't strain yourself beatin' that dead horse.

Warner Todd Huston said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Publius said...

I wouldn't have had any problem with that, either, really. I mean, come on. He got elected. We had the whole party day for him. He did "an" oath. No one purposefully messed up, there was no conspiracy. Just a little proof that The One isn't the deity that the left imagines is all.

piker62 said...

Pub, he's only godlike if you're grading on the curve. Our enthusiasm is based in the fact that Obama isn't Bush.