Tuesday, January 20, 2009

OMG Chief Justice John Roberts leads vast right-wing conspiracy to deny the Presidency to The Black Guy!

From the NY Times...

There was an awkward pause after Chief Justice Roberts prompted Mr. Obama with these words: “that I will execute the office of the president to the United States faithfully.” The chief justice seemed to say “to” rather than “of,” but that was not the main problem. The main problem was that the word “faithfully” had floated upstream in the constitutional text, which actually says this: “That I will faithfully execute the office of the president of the United States.”

Mr. Obama seemed to realize this, pausing quizzically after saying “that I will execute –”

The chief justice gave it another go, getting closer but still not quite right: “faithfully the office of president of the United States.” This time, he omitted the word “execute.”

Mr. Obama now repeated the chief justice’s initial error of putting “faithfully” at the end of the phrase. Starting where he had abruptly paused, he said: “the office of the president of the United States faithfully.”

It was smooth sailing from there. All of the words in the oath were uttered, along with “so help me God” at the end.

People will argue about what the failure to utter the words in the precise order required by the Constitution means. But it will be an academic argument. It is not clear who would have standing to raise the argument that Mr. Obama had not become president as a consequence, and it is hard to believe that any court – or other body – would want to adjudicate the question.


How long before Hannity and/or Limbaugh start crowing the "he's not even the real President" line? I give it two hours.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree this will be fodder for the paranoid. I also saw a piece that said by law he becomes president at 12 noon. It is not clear to me the oath seals the deal.

RJ

andrea said...

oh whatever! maybe the guy was just nervous..made a mistake..that made him more nervous so he messed up even more...sheees no matter how wonderful a public speaker a person may be, everyone makes mistakes..its no conspiracy that the man is freakin human. We have a new President people...black, white, orange, purple, green, whatever! President Obama has the job now, no matter if the words were in the wrong order or not. NOW... let's see what he can do with it. When he ACTUALLY does something AS President, that IS great and wonderful and worth all this bowing down to the great black man, then i'll be impressed. until then...he's just another man that is now our elected President. NOW GET TO WORK!

The Cajun Boy said...

@andrea...you do know that i was joking around, right? roberts was no doubt shitting his pants a bit...i think he underestimated the power of the moment just a bit by not having a note or reading from a teleprompter.

andrea said...

yeah babe...i know you were joking...im just ready to move to the next moment and felt like blurting that out! love and miss you!

Anonymous said...

The USA Today has repeatedly asked Justice Roberts for the past 2 weeks how he has been preparing for giving the oath for the first time and Roberts never responded. Just another arrogant Bushie who thinks he knows it all and doesn't have to prepare. He totally screwed up the sequence and words of the oath and Obama graciously gave him a moment to try and get it right. Roberts showed the world that he is an idiot.