The Funniest part About the Oath Flub

[alcibiades_mystery]

Roberts is supposedly a "textualist," a strict constructionist. In other words, he's of the group that completely fetishizes the actual words of the U.S. Constitution, and considers those words to be fixed and transparent signifiers of a constant idea. For the textualists, it's not merely a matter of "interpreting" the "original intent." Rather, the original intent can only be interpreted using the fixed signifiers of the document, the text itself, the words themselves. For a textualist to screw up the actual text of the Constitution - a mere 35 or so words in this case - is just hilarious. I have no doubt that John Roberts is a smart cookie, but this ranks pretty high up there in terms of embarrassing flubs, especially given his theoretical position on the text of the document.

[Richardo]

1. ...and THAT, Alanis, is ironic

Good observation

[Uzybone]

2. The idiot should have brought notes

a grizzled veteran like Stevens brought notes, but smarty pants Roberts thought he had the whole thing memorized. He ended up looking like a fool.

[BeFree]

7. Yep

He has disgraced himself and his office. Basically, it could be said he violated the constitution.

[underpants]

3. My local rag said that they both flubbed it

no, Obama waited for Roberts to correct himself.

Obama knew what it was supposed to be.

Good point

[No Elephants]

20. Obama did not only wait for Roberts to correct himself. He stopped and nodded to Roberts to take

a do over. Obama brought the cool. Roberts looked like an arrogant showoff who had zero reason to be arrogant.

[glitch]

27. The perfect Republican icon "an arrogant showoff who had zero reason to be arrogant"

Name one current Republican who doesn't fit that description, I dare you.

[supernova]

4. Agreed.

And President Obama ( !!! !!! ) was very generous to him about it.

[TTUBatfan2008]

5. As bad as the "faithfully" flub was...

The "President TO the United States" was even more embarrassing. I don't think I've ever heard anyone refer to the office of the Presidency in that way, especially not in a formal setting. "President OF the United States" should roll off the tongue in the same way that you easily remember to ride a bicycle even after many years of not riding one. Even if you haven't said "President of the United States" recently, it should still be an automatic deal.

[Marie26]

14. That's significant, isn't it?

President "of" the United States implies possession, control - like the CEO "of" Microsoft. "To" implies a subservient position - like Assistant "to" the CEO of Microsoft. It's odd phrasing & not something that anyone would normally say.

[TTUBatfan2008]

17. Well he is subservient to us...

We can vote him out of office if we think he's doing a bad job 4 years from now. But he is also the head OF state. It was just an awkward flub. It seems rather idiotic to me that a Chief Justice OF the Supreme Court OF the United States could screw up that wording when he has it in his own title.

[Marie26]

19. Exactly

Of course the President is subservient to the people, but when's the last time *anyone* referred to the "President to the United States?" I vote for a "freudian slip" - maybe Roberts didn't intend to mess it up, but he couldn't conceal his bitterness & lack of respect.

[nxylas]

29. Is that like Assistant TO THE Regional Manager?

Fans of The Office will know what I'm talking about.

[Marie26]

31. Assistant Regional Manager

has so much more prestige!

[EraOfResponsibility]

16. Exactly, when he said that I was like WTF??? Who says that?

[liberalhistorian]

18. Some freeps and other assorted flotsam and jetsam are

claiming that it was a "Freudian slip" on Roberts' part, since he "knew" that Obama was an "outsider" who'd "usurped" the presidency. I don't know how these idiots manage to dress and feed themselves every day, let alone do anything else.

[JohnnyRingo]

26. They don't have to think...

They open their mouths and broadcast AM radio without the static.

[rug]

21. They should have just let George swear him in.

[whistle]

25. Jesus, did Roberts say TO also? These Federalist Society prick lawye really have a secret agenda eh!

[Cha]

33. No wonder it had to be

retaken today for which I am eternally grateful!

[elocs]

6. This is one flub that will be with Roberts FOREVER.

It will be one of those things that get brought up at every inauguration from this point on.

[riverwalker]

8. Heckuvajob, Johnnie

We pay you too much to screw up. $217,400 plus.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/blctjustices.htm

We want a refund, jackass.

[liberalhistorian]

15. Well, according to a recent speech of his,

he wants his pay, as well as the pay of the other justices and federal judges, dramatically increased because, he whines, it's just not enough for their duties. Uh-huh.

[liberalhistorian]

9. His problem was that he was arrogant enough to think

that he didn't need no stinkin' notes, he was beyond brilliant and he'd do just fine, unlike every single other justice who's administered the oath (all used notes). Even the smartest people quite often need notes, especially when you know you're before a live worldwide audience of billions and it's your first time. As someone in another thread said, it was overconfidence and underpreparation. The whole thing would really be inconsequential if there weren't idiot fringe freeps and even repubs making a big deal out of it, blaming Obama.

[gristy]

13. Exactly what I said in a post yesterday:

I suspect Roberts assumed that he had such an intimate familiarity with the Constitution that this meant that he could recite those 35 words in his sleep. So he didn't need to practice. He didn't need to worry about it.

A sorry misjudgment in his own abilities.

[ClassWarrior]

22. You're being too kind.

Not "a sorry misjudgment in his own abilities," but the arrogance of a self-important mental midget.

NGU.

[Marie26]

10. Unless the intent was to say

"You are not worthy to recite this oath." In which case, he preserved the "original" text from being sullied by a Democratic President. Quite typical of these "textualists" anyway, who usually see fit to twist the actual words when it suits their purposes... But I'm over it!

[whistle]

24. Arrogance on the part of Roberts, that would certainly make sense to a thin Blue lipped Wasp

...like Roberts although it is a shameful reason.

[BeyondGeography]

11. Great point

It also shows how labels like "strict constructionist" become a substitute for thought and open the door to intellectual laziness. What a full-service fuck up that was. He mangled the words AND the grammar. "President TO the United States..." If you do any public speaking at all, you know that every line needs to be handled with care. He was careless.

[progdonkey]

12. damn, I swear I didn't copy you... ;-)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

Great minds and all that, I guess.

[whistle]

23. All the more reason why I believe this was not a flub but a deliberate effort on the part of Roberts

...to trip up Obama.

First, Roberts talk over Obama by ignoring the delivery protocol of the oath of office when he failed to pause after reciting: "I, Barrack Hussein Obama" <pause and wait for Obama to repeat>.

Instead, Roberts deliberately and forcefully talked over Obama by verbally pushing past him with..."do solemnly swear".

Then when he had Obama off balance Roberts again deliberately recites the text out of sequence by saying: "that I will execute the Office of President of the United States -- faithfully".

Now that phrasing changes the entire meaning of the oath from "faithfully execute". As Supreme Court Justice Roberts knows that and that is why I believe it was deliberately mangled.




Here is the correct text for the oath:

"I (name) 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."


<snip>
Faithfully Execute Faithfully the Office of President of the United States Faithfully
Posted by Neal on January 20, 2009

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Photo by AP
Doug and Adam are sick today, and we’re hanging out in the living room watching the inauguration ceremony. The actual swearing-in was interesting. Chief Justice Roberts started out with the words for Obama to repeat:

“I, Barack Hussein Obama –”

Obama repeated: “I, Barack –”

Whoops! Justice Roberts wasn’t done yet! He went on: “–do solemnly swear…”

Obama took it from the top: “I, Barack Hussein Obama do solemnly swear…

Ten minutes earlier, I had heard a slightly too-long pause between Justice Stevens’s intonation of part of the vice-presidential oath of office and Joe Biden’s repeating of it, and I could almost see Biden thinking, “Is it my turn now? OK, he’s waiting, so it must be my turn.” Now, during the shorter presidential oath, Obama stumbled in the opposite direction. Of course, it was a stumble on the part of Roberts, too, since he could have waited for Obama to finish saying his name, and then go on with do solemnly swear.

The oath went on. I didn’t catch it precisely, and we were watching on a TV without DVR, so I couldn’t rewind, but when it got to the part about faithfully executing the office of President of the United States, there was some more stopping, starting, and backtracking. The wording in the Constitution is:

I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States

This is a natural placement of the adverb, between the modal will and the rest of the verb phrase. Roberts phrased it like this:

I will execute faithfully the office of President of the United States

This is also grammatical, but a little bit stilted. I wondered if Roberts was a victim of the “no split infinitives” rule gone wild, the pseudo-rule that causes people to rearrange adverbs when there’s not an infinitive in sight. Or it may be that he just forgot to say faithfully earlier, and was squeezing it in at the last exit before he went into the long noun phrase the Office of President of the United States. The phrasing Obama ultimately took was to go ahead and say the heavy noun phrase and put the adverb at the end:

I will execute the office of President of the United States faithfully

That works, too, but the Constitution’s wording is the best. I hear the commentators now observing that Roberts “messed it up” regarding the oath of office. What do you think? Does variation in adverb placement count as messing it up if you’re saying an oath of office?

I also noticed at the end that Roberts said, “So help you God” and Obama dutifully changed the you to me. Now I can’t remember what the usual way of doing this is. Does someone out there more used to hearing (or administering) oaths than I am know if the administrator says so help you God or so help me God?

And on Obama’s subsequent speech: Way to go! I, too, reject as false the claim that we have to choose between our nation’s security and its ideals. And even if it were true, choosing security is the wrong choice.

http://literalminded.wordpress.com/2009/01/20/faithfull... /

Noam Chomsky ought to be able to straighten out both the meaning and the intent of Roberts on this one.

[WhiteTara]

28. I thought it was purposeful

he is such a repuke.

[cooolandrew]

30. That's very true actually if anyone should get it right it should be a Justice. I think a re-do>

would make me more at ease I wouldn't want them milking this one.

[eppur_se_muova]

32. Right-wingers are deaf and blind to irony, alas. nt