This botched oath may be a minor thing, but I am seeing wingnuts talking about how Obama botched it. That is nonsense. Roberts botched it, and that should be the story, to the extent there is a story.
The oath of office for the President of the United States is specified in the U.S. Constitution (Article II, Section 1): "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
I went ahead and transcribed the oath Roberts gave Obama this morning, with some bracketed comments added by me:
Roberts: Are you prepared to take the oath Senator? [a better question is was Roberts prepared to give it?]
Obama: I am.
Roberts: I Barack Hussein Obama [fake out pause]
Obama: I Bara... [here Roberts interrupts with:]
Roberts: do solemnly swear
Obama: I Barack Hussein Obama do solemnly swear
Roberts: That I will execute the office of President to the United States faithfully [WHAT????- he put faithfully in the wrong place (it is supposed to precede "execute") and said "to" instead of "of", sounding like a buffoon]
Obama: That I will execute ... [here Obama pauses, thinking he'll give the justice a chance to gracefully correct himself from his total botching of the line, out of respect, but also because Obama sure doesn't want to mimick such poor wording]
Roberts: the off... faithfully the pres... the office of President of the United States
Obama: the office of President of the United States faithfully
Roberts: and will to the best of my ability
Obama: [ditto]
Roberts: preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States
Obama: [ditto]
Roberts: So help you God?
Obama: So help me God.
OK, so maybe Obama chimed in a little early with "I Barack Hussein Obama", but it sure looked like Roberts tried to fake him into that. The phrase should be stated without pause there, as it is easy to confuse anyone, otherwise. Roberts should know that. But that part was minor.
In the next part Roberts totally botched what was supposed to be said so badly that Obama was in a dilemma. If he corrected it, he could embarrass the justice. If he repeated it word for word, they would both look bad. So he paused to let Roberts gracefully correct it on his own. Then nervousness hit Roberts and hit him hard. He stuttered and stammered and finally spat out something close to what was supposed to be, Obama organized it into something comprehensible, and they went on.
In the last line, I don't think I have ever heard a justice ask the official "So help you God?" They say, as Stevens did to Biden: "So help me God." and the official repeats it word for word.
Roberts was not prepared to do this and became nervous and botched it. next time he needs to have it written in front of him and to read from what is written, insead of trying to do it from memory.
By the way, there is already a Wikipedia entry on Roberts botched oath, under Oath of office of the President of the United States:
"When swearing in Barack Obama in 2009, Chief Justice John G. Roberts initially omitted the word "faithfully" from the oath, then added it at the end of "of the United States". After some hesitation and clarification by Roberts, Obama repeated the pledge with Roberts' original reordering of the words."