Inaugural Oath -- Snafu, Now Redo: Obama Takes Oath Again

It didn't really come up much in the election, but Obama is a constitutional law expert who taught it for over a decade at the University of Chicago (ultimately being offered tenure). Not at all surprising that he would want to be in line with the letter of the Constitution and not merely the spirit.

Yeah, I agree. When it comes to interpreting the Constitution, I don't think we should settle for "close enough."

This report forgot to mention 1877, when Hayes took the Oath twice, if in different circumstances.

You American history students know that the 1876 election was one of the more contentious Presidential contests, with its own controversy. Hayes was only named President a few weeks before he was to be sworn-in, and he and the Republicans were afraid that the Democrats and Sam Tilden would pull a stunt or some legal motion to halt the proceedings.

So on the night before the official Inaugural, after dinner at the White House with the departing President Grant, Hayes and company went to I believe the Red Room, and understook the Oath. Hayes took it again the next day.

Now you know.

Who were the four print reporters at the swear in II?

A rather odd so-called con law "expert" who has no scholarly publications to his name!

If not for his connections in the political cesspool that is Chicago and his racial background, does anyone seriously believe a man with Obama's non-exisitent record of scholarly publication would have been offered a tenure track position at a reputable law school? Reporters haven't even been able to dig up evidence of any substantive articles written by him during his time on the Harvard Law Review - just the standard "case note" hackwork done by most law review members - much less any scholarly articles written during the time he spent teaching part time at the U. of Chicago, in between "community organizer" gigs and serving radical leftist organizations like the Annenberg Challenge and Gamaliel Foundation.

Funny that jhw539 above thinks Obama believes in the "letter" rather than the "spirit" of the Constitution anyway. The modus operandus of left-wing jurisprudence has always been to elevate the so-called "spirit" (divined according to the personal political whims of the likes of scum like Harry Blackmun, etc.)of the Constitution over what the Constitution actually says.

It's clear anyway that the transposition of the adverb "faithfully" is immaterial in terms of it being an impediment to assuming the duties of office. If it were and impediment, then Obama should also have re-signed yesterday's cabinet nominations and re-submitted them to Congress, as well as re-doing any other official documents he signed yesterday.

Anyway, why not take after example set by a social-conservative judge appointed by a Republican President and a liberal Democratic President?

They seem to be cool about the whole snafu, no bad blood, and they corrected the situation instead of surrendering to their ideological-political corners and by their proxies (Blogs) blame everything on the other.

In other words, humility by both men.

It was a good move to do the do-over. If they had not done that, surely some rabid right-wing nutjob would file suit, claiming he has not legally president since Roberts blew the first oath.

I heard this senario happened twice before in history. They had a do-over.
It doesn't take a scholar to figure that one out. Even children in school yards have 'do overs' if something doesn't go right.
So good for Obama. He had a 'do over'.

Also, would Obama approve of name calling? I think he's above that. His fellow democrats should be, too.
Call names if you want to if it makes you feel better about yourself.

Name calling should be eliminated for BOTH sides. It doesn't help; it only pulls people apart further.
Facts and opinions are great.
Just leave out the 'nutjob' kind of phrases. That would be helpful to further the conversation.