Dante
simulacrum..facsimile..imitation..replica...copy..
Barack Obama recited: "I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States." The 35-word presidential oath is mandated by the U.S. Constitution, but a verbal stumble by Chief Justice John Roberts in 2009 led to a re-administered oath the next day.
I remember the conspiracy theories on this.
To think so much of this was debated and argued about, by some very serious people. Conspiracy theories can often be amusing.
[
On January 21, 2009 — just twenty-four hours after the most-watched inauguration in American history — President Barack Obama stood quietly inside the White House's intimate Map Room, no crowd of two million, no thundering applause, no Lincoln Bible, no sweeping mall stretching into the winter horizon, just Chief Justice John Roberts, a handful of reporters, and thirty-five of the most consequential words in the United States Constitution, because the night before, Roberts — one of the most powerful jurists on earth, a Harvard Law graduate himself — had arrived at the Capitol steps without a physical copy of the oath, stumbled over the placement of the word "faithfully,"
and in that single misplaced syllable, created the most legally discussed moment of any modern inauguration, with constitutional scholars, bloggers, and news anchors debating through the night whether the 44th President of the United States had actually been sworn in at all,
and so with the grace and quiet seriousness that defined him, Obama looked at Roberts and said, "I am, and we're going to do it very slowly," and in that calm, almost tender exchange between two Harvard-trained legal minds, the oath was administered again, flawlessly, the Constitution honored in full,
and when it was over, Obama smiled and joked to reporters that now they had to attend twelve more inaugural balls — a man carrying the weight of a nation and still finding room for laughter, still choosing dignity over drama, turning a stumble into a story about the unshakeable strength of American democracy and the quiet, unflappable character of the man at its helm."
]
I remember the conspiracy theories on this.
To think so much of this was debated and argued about, by some very serious people. Conspiracy theories can often be amusing.[
On January 21, 2009 — just twenty-four hours after the most-watched inauguration in American history — President Barack Obama stood quietly inside the White House's intimate Map Room, no crowd of two million, no thundering applause, no Lincoln Bible, no sweeping mall stretching into the winter horizon, just Chief Justice John Roberts, a handful of reporters, and thirty-five of the most consequential words in the United States Constitution, because the night before, Roberts — one of the most powerful jurists on earth, a Harvard Law graduate himself — had arrived at the Capitol steps without a physical copy of the oath, stumbled over the placement of the word "faithfully,"
and in that single misplaced syllable, created the most legally discussed moment of any modern inauguration, with constitutional scholars, bloggers, and news anchors debating through the night whether the 44th President of the United States had actually been sworn in at all,
and so with the grace and quiet seriousness that defined him, Obama looked at Roberts and said, "I am, and we're going to do it very slowly," and in that calm, almost tender exchange between two Harvard-trained legal minds, the oath was administered again, flawlessly, the Constitution honored in full,
and when it was over, Obama smiled and joked to reporters that now they had to attend twelve more inaugural balls — a man carrying the weight of a nation and still finding room for laughter, still choosing dignity over drama, turning a stumble into a story about the unshakeable strength of American democracy and the quiet, unflappable character of the man at its helm."
]
