Is the Obama presidency already in reruns?
No.
He took the Oath of Office a second time, tonight !
So, story: A lot of media are reporting that this whole thing was brought on by the White House Counsel Greg Craig (best name ever) and Joe Biden's stupidity. At the ceremony to swear in Obama's White House staff, Biden said the following, according to Politico:
“My memory is not as good as Justice Roberts,” Biden said at the swearing in of White House staffers Wednesday afternoon.
The staffers in the room laughed, but Obama stood stone faced and visibly annoyed:
Last night on the air, this happened:
And Fox News anchor Chris Wallace said: "We're wondering here whether or not Barack Obama in fact is the president of the United States. They had a kind of garbled oath. It's just conceivable that this will end up going to the courts."
The White House then issued a statement saying that they had decided, out of thoroughness, to have Justice Roberts come to the White House to administer the Oath once more. Apparently a lot of people, including "professional" Chris Wallace, think that Obama is not officially the President, and that since yesterday, Joe Biden has actually been the President, since the Oath of Office for the President was not properly administered, and was somehow in violation of the 22nd Amendment.
Wrong. The 22nd Amendment was put in place strictly for the two-term limit rule...good 'ol George Washington and Thomas Jefferson didn't want young America turning into a Monarchy.
Additionally, the 20th Amendment was called into question, since some thought that at noon yesterday our country was leaderless, because the Oath had not been given. Article 2 of the Constitution, that lays out the oath, was effectively superseded by the 20th Amendment, which states that the President and Vice President relinquish power at precisely noon on the 20th day in January...regardless of whether the President-elect has taken the Oath.
There's some tricky language, but the 20th Amendment makes distinction between "entering upon the execution of the office" and "term of office shall start at noon." Meaning, that President Obama's term started at noon yesterday, but didn't enter into the execution of his duties until after he was sworn in.
Rest easy, America, Obama is actually our President !
I'm really glad Obama stuck up for Chief Justice Roberts, too...give the guy a break, it was his first inauguration, and he didn't plan on looking like a douche, he wanted to go without notes and look impressive.
Sidenote: I watched the National Prayer Service that the President attended, and...wow.
3 comments:
Queue the conspiracy theorists proposing that the second oath taken by Obama was not the true oath and was some oath of eternal dictatorship or some garbage like that.
I really like how Obama reacted to Biden's bad humor. The subtle touching of Biden's arm and shaking of the head speaks volumes of how Obama wants to govern. Still, I have to admit that I found the attempted swearing in at the Capitol Building fairly amusing. Poor guy shows up with one simple job to do, and he messes it up. A reminder that the best of us, including Presidents and Chief Justices, are still human.
As opposed to putting those conspiracy theorists into a very, very long line, we can save some time by just giving them a cue to begin spouting their nonsense.
For those keeping score at home...
English - 1
Dan - 0
But I wanted to queue them...someplace without access to comment threads...
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