Hey, let’s do this every day!
Chief Justice John Roberts administered the 35-word oath office to President Obama for a second time. (White House photo)
In order to fix the mistake from Day 1 of his administration, Barack Obama retook the oath of office today — but this time without his hand on a Bible and without any press to actually document that today’s round was done correctly.
Yesterday, both Chief Justice John Roberts and the president got tripped up on the 35-word oath of office that’s prescribed by the constitution.
According to the Associated Press, White House Counsel Greg Craig had this to say about the double-take:
We believe the oath of office was administered effectively and that the president was sworn in appropriately yesterday. Yet the oath appears in the Constitution itself. And out of the abundance of caution, because there was one word out of sequence, Chief Justice John Roberts will administer the oath a second time.
The “abundance of caution” could have been prompted by the so-called experts who said the oath should be retaken.
Caution would also dictate that the oath would be documented by the press, so there’s no question about how it all went down. There’s no proof that the second take was any better than the first.
Maybe we can do this every day.
Sources:
Associated Press, Jan. 21, 2009
Do-over: Obama retakes oath of office
San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 21, 2009
