Comments on: President Barack Obama Retakes The Presidential Oath Of Office

By: Keimo

Keimo — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 01:33:22 +0000

Um, JJ…….FOX HAS NOT “SUDDENLY been a bunch of biased idiots”. WE, THE PEOPLE have been saying that for a looooong time! LMAO!!!!

By: Michelle

Michelle — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 06:18:04 +0000

@CB – I agree Chris Wallace is a tool. So if Fox News. Clearly those people were not required to take any sort of history or government courses ever or they would have known that the oath is basically a public formallity and tradition than anything else. You gotta love that pretty much as soon as Wallace said that, Fox News was all over it… The only reason I even saw the Fox thing was bc my sister had on that channel. I was flipping between CNN and MSNBC (MSNBC was having problems staying in on my cable network) Anyway you gotta love a President that’s thorough!

By: Emily

Emily — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 04:12:28 +0000

BTW… the bible is not required, but most Presidents choose to use one due to tradition! So no..there will probs not be a take 3..sorry!

By: lauren

lauren — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 04:11:10 +0000

Ella — on your third point: exactly! The only people who keep referring to Obama as a Messiah or Savior, and saying he’s magically going to fix everything, are the right-wingers! The rest of us are just hopeful that we now have a president who respects the Constitution, the rule of law, and the rest of the world. He inspires us to try to improve the world, as well. This doesn’t make him the freaking Son of God or anything, and I wish they’d stop harping on that.

By: Ella

Ella — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 00:38:34 +0000

News channels are all biased. I happen to think Fox is more biased than some. I think people are making a big deal out of nothing. No matter who messed it up on Tuesday, it has now been redone. Either way Obama is still our President.

@Gadfly-
Just because someone stumbled that means Obama or the Chief Court Justice doesn’t give a crap? So if someone is getting married and they stumble over their vows that means they don’t care about their marriage? That is a bunch of crap, in my own humble opinion.

@JJ
Obama is not anyone’s Savior or Messiah and I think people should stop inferring that people think he is. What is wrong with having hope? What is wrong with being excited that the first black man has been sworn in as the President of the United States? While I understand that some people may be putting all their eggs in one basket so to speak, I don’t think people expect him to do anything superhuman or to wave a magic wand and fix everything Bush and his administration screwed up.
To call him a Savior is to set him up for failure and that is not at all fair to him or to this country, because his failure is our failure.

By: NS

NS — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 23:15:56 +0000

Wow, Gadfly, pretentious much?

By: Gadfly

Gadfly — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 22:16:37 +0000

Oh, where’s the bible in the “take two” oath?

Oops. Take Three?

By: Gadfly

Gadfly — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 21:51:45 +0000

I happen to be a humble servant in a profession in which oath’s are taken very seriously. I do not expect anyone who reads this blog to understand how much swearing allegiance to an oath means to some; as I am just one person with very simple ways so it really doesn’t matter.

Bottom line: I hope that President Obama is graced with the soundest of wisdom and the sincerest of council to make good decisions for this country.

However, the oath President Obama fiddled with he should know stone cold. Period. All Presidents should. This is an unarguable point. The Chief Justice should have to say that oath from beginning to end in one shot, and then the President should recite it back perfectly in my humble opinion. Wouldn’t that show a little more “give-a-crap” factor? How much does an oath you swear to really mean if you can’t remember it anyways? Just do it again, blame it on someone else, and get it over with. Take Two right?

But then again, oath’s are just a bunch of words, and the Constitution is just a living document… right? America is a big evil monster? President Obama is gonna make every single one of your dreams come true?

I think a lot of people don’t understand that in the phrase “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” – “pursuit” is an action verb; requiring action on YOUR part. You are not just entitled magically to happiness.

On a few separate notes, how about that prayer from Mr. Rick Warren eh?

And regarding news channels, if you do not think the press was biased one way or another you’re a nincompoop. Source: http://www.mrc.org/SpecialRepo.....xecSum.asp

By: CB

CB — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 19:47:45 +0000

JP – Okay…
Do you think that saying “Chris Matthews is a tool” is going to hurt my feelings?
You people make me chuckle!

By: JP

JP — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 19:01:53 +0000

CB–Chris Matthews is a tool. to state that MSNBC is the channel of change and hope and that all the people standing in the mall watching the inauguration watches MSNBC and is the future of our country. just because i watch Fox doesn’t mean i’m a right wing conservative obama hater.

By: CB

CB — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 17:09:12 +0000

Chris Wallace is a tool. However, Fox News’s reaction is not shocking considering that the network devoted way more coverage to W’s helicopter ride and subsequent landings/takeoffs than to the actual inauguration of the President.
It’s so obviously desperate. Kind of funny, actually.

By: Tweety

Tweety — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:29:25 +0000

Since we’re all about change. How about changing these attention hungry cable news networks and how they “find” and “report” stories? Its garbage the nonesense n’ drama they try to drum up just for ratings.

By: lauren

lauren — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:13:04 +0000

Uh, JJ, where were you when the NY TImes and every news outlet were basically making the case for war in Iraq? Which they’ve all now APOLOGIZED for, admitting that they were not being objective. 8 years of being biased against Bush? Come on… that’s insane. And if you look at the transcript from the ceremony, it WAS Roberts’ fault. He screwed up his lines not once, but twice. On a happier note, Obama is going to close down the CIA “black sites” today! (Where we hand off prisoners to other countries to be tortured… torture isn’t American, but if we do it in a different country, I guess it’s OK?) Finally, a president who respects the Constitution. : )

By: sabrina

sabrina — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 15:36:22 +0000

Seriously, I think it was a little ridiculous to suggest that Obama wasn’t president because of the flub by Roberts, cuz he was the president at noon, by law. And I like Fox News! But like posters said above, everyone makes mistakes. This was Justice Roberts’ first President to swear in, I know I’d be nervous as hell.

By: JJ

JJ — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 15:02:46 +0000

Okay, the New York Times and every major news outlet including CNN and MSNBC have spent the last 8 years trashing George W. Bush and suddenly FOX is a bunch of biased idiots b/c they posed the question of “Is Obama really president?” And I agree, if this had been Bush everyone would be talking about what an idiot he is but since it’s Savior Obama of course everyone blames Roberts…

By: Denise

Denise — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 15:00:27 +0000

And yet, Fox News consistently beats CNN in the ratings.

By: Belle

Belle — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 14:46:55 +0000

I think it’s a nice gesture, since he is essentially making a personal oath to us.

I have sympathy for them both, it was freaking freezing out there, and 2 million people were staring (not counting it being broadcast all over the world). Anyone could fumble lines in those conditions!

By: stacee

stacee — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 14:36:45 +0000

That whole thing was such a shame. It was clear to me that Roberts was the one who messed it up. So embarrassing for Obama. I swear I almost missed it on Tuesday! I was like ‘wait, it’s over already?!’.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 14:10:45 +0000

It wasn’t actually Obama that insisted on redoing the oath. It was his white house counsel, Greg Craig, who suggested redoing the oath.

By: Emily

Emily — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 14:01:56 +0000

I don’t know if its possible to say whose fault it is… they both stumbled and likely had a confusing effect on each other.

According to the 20th Amendment to the Constitution, the term of the President begins at noon on Jan. 20th no matter what. I doesn’t mention the oath of office. I has language stating that the Vice President would act as President if the President “failed to qualify”. Article 2, Section 1 Cl. 8 contains the oath of office and only specifies that the President need take it before he enter on the “execution” of his office. The problem is that the quoted phrases haven’t been interpreted so there is no precedent to fall back on. Better safe than sorry :)

By: K

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 13:35:17 +0000

seriously, fox news should be ashamed of itself. they are so over-the-top and biased.. that type of media is useless and completely unnecessary in today’s world.

By: las

las — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 13:25:29 +0000

Fox News is the worst!

By: Katheryn

Katheryn — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 12:53:59 +0000

Roxster,

I was thinking the same thing along the lines that if this was GB all hell would have broke loose about how much of an idiot he was, regardless of whose fault it was. This was an EXTREMELY important day, both parties seemed to be at fault as he interupted Roberts through it, it seemed like a huge mess. And Obama’s wife said something into his ear afterwards..probably like “way to screw that up honey”… hehe

By: Roxster

Roxster — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 05:06:36 +0000

j: Thats according to the constitution, but it def doesn’t hurt to make sure its done right. This def didn’t deserve to become a big deal, both men were relying on memory in a high pressure, exciting situation. Mistakes are bound to be made. Though I will say….I feel like it was a joint mistake, Obama cut off Roberts, Roberts got thrown off and made it worse. If this had been George Bush getting sworn in this would have been another story about Bush being an idiot. Instead, today the NY papers are blaming it on Roberts and calling him an oaf. . .

By: It's Trent, Bitch!

It's Trent, Bitch! — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 04:25:01 +0000

@J — correct, he became pres at noon despite the oath :)