Fox: Obama Was Not Sworn In Due To Error

Fox News is questioning whether or not Barack Obama is president, due to the fact, Chief Justice Roberts, of the U.S. Supreme Court, flubbed the oath of office, causing Obama to repeat it incorrectly, whilst being sworn in.

Words were missing from the oath and it was said in the wrong order. Some are wondering if he did it deliberately. That would be so mean if it is true.

Ah, leave it up to the Supreme Court to mess up a landmark moment, creating a lasting impression of incompetence and incredulousness.

Maybe Justice Roberts has been hanging around George W. Bush too long and can't say his words correctly anymore. Obama should retake the oath.

Better retake that oath

Boston University constitutional law scholar and Supreme Court watcher Jack Beermann said just to be safe, Obama ought to retake the oath of office that Chief Justice John Roberts flubbed.

"It would take him 30 seconds, he can do it in private, it's not a big deal, and he ought to do it just to be safe," Berman said. "It's an open question whether he's president until he takes the proper oath."

http://www.sfgate.com

Chief justice leads Obama to stumble presidential oath

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Barack Obama took the 35-word oath of office Tuesday to become the United States' 44th president -- even if he may have been led to utter the historic words in the wrong order.

Obama was sworn in by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, resting his left hand on Abraham Lincoln's Bible and raising his right hand to deliver the words that formally made him the successor to former president George W. Bush.

But things didn't go exactly as planned for the swearing-in of the country's first African-American commander-in-chief.

Under the gaze of more than two million crowded onto Washington's National Mall and millions more around the world, Obama said: "I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear that I will execute the office of president of the United States faithfully, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the constitution of the United States.

"So help me God."

As specified in the US Constitution, the word "faithfully" precedes the phrase "execute the office," but the chief justice, in his first presidential inauguration, read that part of the oath incorrectly.

Obama paused, apparently realizing something was wrong, and after an awkward moment Roberts repeated himself, but the chief justice stumbled again. Obama eventually recited the line as Roberts originally said it.

http://www.google.com

Copy-editing the Constitution?

I certainly hope that the off-the-cuff revision Chief Justice John Roberts performed on the presidential oath of office today was not a sign of conservative judicial activism to come. And I doubt that Roberts simply dislikes the Founders' prose style. No, let's assume that Roberts made an honest mistake during the inauguration. Still.

It's astonishing that Roberts flubbed the oath of office when he administered it to President Obama. That oath is not something to be taken likely. It's right there in the Constitution, prescribed word for word by Article II, Section 1, Clause 8.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com

Chief Justice Roberts Ruins Perfectly Nice Ceremony

GettySince it seemed at the time that the mangled oath of office was possibly a result of Barack Obama's nerves, let's set the record straight: Barack Obama doesn't get nervous (or sweat). It is Chief Justice John Roberts — who, coincidentally, didn't get Obama's vote in the Senate — who shoulders the blame.

http://www.examiner.com

Chief Justice Roberts gives the oath of office? Really?

What struck me, though, was the way Roberts ended the oath. The language of the oath, in Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution, does not include ''so help me God.'' Presidents have added that part themselves ever since FDR. But the Chief Justice, instead of simply stating that phrase, like the rest of the oath, for the president-elect to restate himself, made it into a question -- ``So help you God?'' -- as if he were interrogating Obama about whether he does believe in God.

http://opinion.latimes.com

I Do Solemnly Swear…(Line, Please?)

There is, in any event, no rule against a do-over. When questions were raised about whether Calvin Coolidge should have been sworn in by his father, a notary public, he took the oath again, this time from a Supreme Court justice.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com

Fox News' Chris Wallace: Is Obama even president?

"Well, again, we're wondering here whether or not Barack Obama in fact is the president of the United States," Chris Wallace told Fox News viewers, well over an hour after Obama had taken the oath of office today.

Fox News replayed the swearing-in moment when President Obama and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. each bobbled the words to the constitutional oath. "They had a kind of garbled oath," Wallace said.

"It's just conceivable that this will end up going to the courts," Wallace speculated.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com