UPDATE: WASHINGTON - Chief Justice John Roberts administered the presidential oath of office to Barack Obama for a second time Wednesday just to be on the safe side.
The unusual step came after Roberts flubbed the 35-word constitutionally prescribed oath a bit on Tuesday, causing Obama to repeat the wording differently than as prescribed in the Constitution. White House counsel Greg Craig said Obama took the oath from Roberts again out of an "abundance of caution."
ORIGINAL DIARY
I have been annoyed all day about the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts messing up the Oath of office for President Obama. C'mon now - he had one single job to do and he chose to try it with no notes and apparently no practice. Heck of a job Chiefy! But, in the interest of forgiveness and finding something good in everything, I have come up with 5 reasons to be grateful about the misstep.
List is after the jump
1. A CHANGE BUT NOT A CLEAN SLATE
Having Bush appointee John Roberts botch the only job he had on Tuesday serves to remind us the cronies born of the conservative movement still hold some very crucial levers of power in our country (eg: Roberts is Chief Justice FOR LIFE) . In many cases these right wing ideologues are not always highly competent. We will have to navigate around them or learn to work with them to implement the change Americans so desperately want.
2. OBAMA THE MAN, NOT THE OBAMESSIAH
It showed Obama vulnerable and human - kind of endearing. He's not the perfect, unicorn riding Messiah his critics sometime charge. It's probably a gift and a reality check to realize that he and we all are mere mortals. What a nice guy though, he even laughed it off and refused to dump on Roberts.
3. WHAT THE H !?!
It took focus off the name Hussein. Seriously, that is the least of the commentary. Who would have thought.
4. SOMETHING FOR THE HATERS
While Obama enjoys huge popularity right now, there is still a small number of people who are Obama haters. If the day had gone 100% perfectly, the Haters would have had nothing to hate on. But with the oath gaffe, they too had something they could like about the day. Talk about being able to please everybody! With the flub, Obama lover and haters both had something to enjoy yesterday.
5. TWELVE YEARS FOR PRESIDENT OBAMA?
For the few nut cases that will claim he is not really President because Roberts gave him the wrong oath, we can point that the U.S. Constitution says the new President takes over automatically at noon on January 20th - the oath is ceremonial but unnecessary. If they persist in their conspiracy theories I say GREAT!!! Come the year 2016 Obama can run for President for the third time and on January 20, 2017 he can take the real oath for the constitutionally declared maximum second time. Conspiracy theorists keep those tip foil hats on because 12 years of President Obama sounds good to me.
Cross posted at MarkTheBlogger.com.