

Obama retakes oath at White House after mix-up - frisco
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/21/obama.oath/index.html

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sachinag
Best part: this is the _third_ time this has happened.

[http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/01/obama-takes-
presi...](http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/01/obama-takes-presidential-
oath-again.html)

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litewulf
Sorry, I want to clarify:

He doesn't mean Obama had to take his oath of office three times, but instead
that Obama is the third president to have messed up when saying the oath of
office.

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dissenter
The media has been placing the blame for the imperfect oath on the Chief
Justice, but the fault appears to be with the President.

In the clip of the Vice Presidential oath the first phrase is "I [name] do
solemnly swear..." Both the Justice and the Vice President get it right. In
the clip of the Presidential oath, the Chief Justice attempts to speak the
full first phrase, but is interrupted in the middle by the President.

The President is the one who starts the deviation. The Chief Justice then goes
on to mangle an important line.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5VB4LgOH58>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EHOHe-_uQg>

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ellyagg
Indeed, and though you were voted down, the one major media article I read on
this explained clearly that that was the case. However, the lede took great
care to suggest the blame was the CJ's, before the article went on to clarify.

It makes zero difference, but it's an embarrassing illustration of the
continuing non-existence of a dominant independent media, that they are so
sensitive to protecting Obama against even the slightest image damage.
Obviously, if this had happened during Bush's inauguration, the chortles would
have been unceasing.

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GHFigs
What you claim is obvious is not obvious.

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aston
One interesting point is that any constitutionalist strict enough to claim
that the oath must be taken verbatim would pretty much be claiming
nullification of every presidency. The oath as written doesn't include an
allowance for the insertion of the President-to-be's name. It also doesn't
include "So help me God," though since that falls after the oath it probably
matters less.

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matt1
Not appropriate for HackerNews :)

~~~
pg
It's really a story about breakage. It happens that a politician was involved,
but it's not _about_ politics.

