Roberts should be downgraded to Associate Justice...

[TTUBatfan2008]

All 9 of them should be "experts" on the Constitution, but the Chief Justice especially has no excuses for fucking up like he did. You fuck up something as simple as the Presidential oath and cause the President to have to do it again the next day, you don't deserve to be the head of the highest court in the land.

[SuperTrouper]

1. and who will be Chief Justice...Thomas???

[WeDidIt]

7. Stevens is most senior

[Sebastian Doyle]

8. Stevens.... as long as he wants the job.

And his young replacement, when he doesn't.

[Sanity Claws]

2. Roberts should be embarrassed!

Strict constructionist, my eye!

[dsc]

3. the chief justice isn't all that powerful

the only power he has is to assign the person who writes an opinion if he is in the majority. He also administrates the federal judiciary but that is only a nuts and bolts thing.

[KittyWampus]

5. who decided what cases will be heard?

[dsc]

11. they vote

His vote is just like theirs in that regard. It takes 4 votes to grant cert.

[LakeSamish706]

6. Not all that bright either apparently! n/t

[TTUBatfan2008]

12. I know they're pretty much equal...

It's mostly a symbolic thing, and as such, he deserves some kind of reprimand. The asshole caused, as expected, a huge uproar from people trying to question the President's legitimacy. And it was his damn fault. That shouldn't go unpunished, even if the punishment is almost entirely symbolic.

[LakeSamish706]

4. It really makes one wonder, does he or does he not know the Constitution? n/t

[alsame]

10. I am willing to believe it was an honest mistake, he was probably

nervous, having never done this before and knowing millions were watching. However, it was foolish, arrogant or both not to have it written down so he could read it and get the words in their proper order.

[TTUBatfan2008]

13. It wasn't just the order of the words...

He cut Obama off while he was saying his name, plus he changed the title from "President of the United States" to "President to the United States."

[alsame]

18. Wow, I didn't even catch the of/to mix up. I guess the entire

oath was just so badly mangled, they had to do it again.

[RayOfHope]

17. But it was so STUPID! I chalk it up to arrogance. "I don't need no stinkin notecard" n/t

[Billy Burnett]

9. Yet another example of incompetent repugs failing upward.

This shit has got to stop.

[gcomeau]

14. Can we please obsess about something that actually matters?

So the guy got up in front of 2 million live witnesses and a television audience consisting of much of the planet focusing their undivided attention on every move he made and he stumbled over his damn lines. How are YOU with stage fright? Why does anyone here give a crap about this exactly? Worry about his rulings, this is petty and juvenile.

[TTUBatfan2008]

15. Why didn't he bring a piece of paper to READ from?

Why did he think he needed to memorize his lines? Biden's oath went just fine because Stevens was reading from a piece of paper.

And no, what's petty and juvenile is the right wing questioning Obama's legitimacy because of this. They took it seriously. I was laughing about it until those idiots started talking about it like it was a serious thing. Fucking Chris Wallace on Fox News, allegedly a "mainstream" part of the media, suggested that Obama wasn't the President because of this. It wasn't a big deal to me until THEY chose to make it a big deal.

[gcomeau]

20. Not really grasping the meaning of my post are we?

When I pointed out that this was a petty juvenile attitude to obsess over the meaningless fact that some guy got nervous when he got stuck in front of an audience of millions and flubbed a line in a ceremony... I wasn't asking you for further commentary on why you want to spend time bitching about it.

I. Don't. Give. A. Shit. about some guy getting stage fright in front of the biggest live viewing audience anyone has probably ever seen. He's a judge, not an entertainer. If he screws up a legal ruling THEN start bitching, but calling for the man to be professionally disciplined for something like this is pathetically childish.

[Unsane]

16. Chief Justice is largely a ceremonial role/title.

He/She does things like decide who authors the majority opinion, calls the advocates to speak at oral argument, and sits in the middle during the official photo. It literally is a nothing position.

[TTUBatfan2008]

19. I know it's largely symbolic...

but if the right wanted to turn this into a serious issue rather than laughing about it like we were yesterday, then they deserve to have their idiot Chief Justice reprimanded in some way, even if it's merely symbolic.

[book_worm]

21. and administrative, he also is in charge of the court building.

[calimary]

22. Truly. He just failed a HUGE competence test. Maybe the biggest.

ABSOLUTELY should be downgraded.

There are mistakes and there are mistakes. Innocent little bloopers and blunders and sloppy slip-ups on any ol' day are one thing. To blow the PRESIDENTIAL OATH OF OFFICE - ON INAUGURATION DAY, and not just any inauguration, either - but a HISTORY-MAKING INAUGURATION that drew the intense and personal interest of most of the population of Planet Earth, especially one that YOU KNEW FOR WEEKS WAS COMING AND YOU DIDN'T JUST GET THE ASSIGNMENT THAT SAME MORNING - is absolutely INEXCUSABLE. roberts is a DISGRACE.

Yeah, I'm shouting, sorry. But shit - this is BEYOND belief. There's simply no excuse whatsoever. Some flake semi-drunk justice-of-the-peace at Cousin Maisie's wedding is one thing. Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court - is just a completely different thing. Separated by LIGHTYEARS. He should resign in shame.