To avoid conspiracy kook-ery, Obama retakes oath.

After Tuesday’s Inaugural oopsie- now obviously Justice Roberts’ fault- Obama decided to retake the oath of office. I love the term that Greg Craig used when explaining the redo.  “Abundance of caution”.  Read: to keep the conspiracy wingnuts from trying to oust the President on the basis of minutiae. Read: to keep the people who doubted Obama’s birth certificate from looking for another bizarre reason to have the man thrown out.

I actually had the same worry that Craig apparently did.  Obama has faced so many ridiculous rumors and conspiratorial insult that he and his people have learned to behave in a hyper-politic manner.  It’s a good thing that Obama decided to retake the oath, so as to clear up any possible misunderstanding. Unfortunately, another small detail may foul things up all the worse: this time, Obama didn’t take the oath on a Bible.

Uh oh! Secrit muslin! I can’t wait for a certain crevice of the internet to speculate that Obama neglected the Good Book on purpose, or that he actually had a Koran in his pocket, or God knows what else. In that vein, take a look at this comic reposted with permission from Superpoop.com (which is incidentally written by a fellow Columbus resident).

courtesy of superpoop.com
courtesy of superpoop.com
Share

Erika Price

Erika is a PhD student in Social Psychology living in Chicago. Here on DI she most often writes about current events, psychology, skepticism, media and internet culture.

This Post Has 6 Comments

  1. Avatar of ahrcanum
    ahrcanum

    Had Obama not jumped ahead of Roberts- the whole thing could have been avoided. It was afterall, the attorney general of the US position that he re-take the oath as required. Why wouldn't he ask for a bible?

  2. Avatar of Hank
    Hank

    First, I don't see what all the fuss is about. The CJ fumbled, which made Obama fumble and together they muffed it. Now they fixed it, great, but they should've just had a do-over right then & there. The guy is President, let's move on.

    Second, I don't see why on earth the new leader of a secular democracy should be compelled to swear on a Bible in the first place. You may as well swear an oath on Catcher In The Rye – no book is going to either stop you from breaking your oath or make you a decent president, regardless of how much you love it or how many times you've read it 🙂

    Having said that, I do actually know why presidents are sworn in on Bibles. Tradition is tradition – plus 90% of America would brand them a freakin heretic if they didn't and they more than likely wouldn't get themselves re-elected!

  3. Avatar of Niklaus Pfirsig
    Niklaus Pfirsig

    In spite of the face that the re-taking of the oath of office being televised on the network news, the talk radio conspiracy theory crowd are now claiming that the second oath was done in secrecy and that Obama was sworn in on a copy of the Koran.

  4. Avatar of Ted
    Ted

    Take the test.

    FIRST QUESTION: Who IS the actual and lawful 44th President of the USA?

    ANSWER: Joe Biden

    Biden was initially the Acting President for at least 5 minutes under either the Constitution’s Article 2 or the Constitution’s 20th Amendment, from 12:00 Noon 1/20/09, having already taken his Oath of Office and before Obama completed his ‘oath’ at approximately 12:05 PM, 1/20/09. Under the 20th Amendment if the President-elect shall have failed to qualify, or alternatively under Article 2 if the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term, being 12:00 Noon 1/20/09, which ability and/or qualification includes that he take the Article 2 oath “before he enter on the execution of his office,” then either the Presidency shall devolve on the Vice President under Article 2 or the Vice President shall act as President under the 20th Amendment. (The importance of the oath in ‘commencing’ an ‘Obama Presidency’ — rather than merely the 1/20/09 Noon time — is confirmed by the re-take of the ‘oath’ by Obama at the White House on 1/21/09 after the first ‘oath’ was NOT administered by Justice Roberts NOR recited by Obama in the words as required under Article 2.)

    This is significant because at such time that the Supreme Court finally rules on the merits on Obama’s disqualification as not being an Article 2 “natural born citizen” (clearly he is NOT), Biden’s automatic status (without needing to take a separate Presidential Oath) of being President would be predicated upon four different bases: First, having been Vice President under Article 2; second, having been Vice President-elect under the 20th Amendment; third, having been actual President in the hiatus before Obama took the ‘oath(s)’; and fourth, retroactively deemed President during the full period of the Obama usurpation so that the acts of the Federal Government under the usurpation can be deemed authorized and/or ratified by Biden’s legitimacy.

    SECOND QUESTION: Who will be the 45th President?

    ANSWER: Hillary Clinton

    One must assume that Bill and Hillary Clinton have been aware of all of the above. Biden’s wife recently “let the cat out of the bag” on the Oprah Show that both Biden and Hillary had considered alternatively Veep or Secretary of State, in either case, setting up Hillary to be President on a vote of the Democratic Congress if need be.

    THIRD QUESTION: Is Obama an unwitting victim of this troika or a knowing participant?

    ANSWER: Yet undetermined.

  5. Avatar of TJ
    TJ

    Ted, are you one of those conspiracy wingnuts, or are you just pretending for the sake of humor? My sarcasm detector is malfunctioning and I'm just not sure.

Leave a Reply