Humor by John Christmann
I Solemnly Swear
Just after the inauguration a lot was made of Chief Justice Robert’s apparent flub of the oath administered to the incoming President. In that historic moment, with the eyes of the world upon them, the two stumbled over each other like bad dancers, finally getting it right even though the words as written in the Constitution were in the wrong order. I watched it thinking, now this is something that would happen to me.
I pictured myself as Chief Justice, facing the president elect who is solemnly standing before me with his right hand in the air and his left hand on the bible. And then, as I ask him to repeat after me, I forget his first name. Or more likely, I am midway through the oath and see the President’s lips silently moving. He is desperately trying to get my attention: “Your honor!” he mouths, “Your fly is open!”
Some cried that the oath should be done over. Others claimed that it was all moot because at 12 noon on January 20th the office changed hands anyway. Still others pointed out that the president did not have to repeat the oath at all, that there was precedent to merely state “I do” once the oath was read. Now this I find really scary.
What if instead of flubbing the oath, Chief Justice Roberts had administered the wrong oath? What if he had said, “Do you, Barack Obama, solemnly swear to take the United States of America as your lawfully wedded wife so help you god?” and President Obama, appearing confused, nodded his head and said “I do.”
Now I respect President Obama a lot, and I have high hopes for his administration, but I don’t think I want to be married to the guy. And I sure as heck don’t want to be sharing the White House bathroom each morning with the President, the First Lady, and 300 million First Americans.
On the other hand a honeymoon in Hawaii and a wedding ring engraved with the Presidential Seal could be pretty cool.
But this is really no laughing matter. It seems to me something like this could happen quite easily. The Chief Justice, representing the highest court in the land, has a momentary lapse, administers a wedding oath instead of the inaugural oath, and one “I do” later we have not only resolved the issue of gay marriage, but have reinstated polygamy as well. I am not a legal scholar, but given that our rights to bear arms are preserved under the second amendment, I don’t think such a marriage can be easily dissolved under existing shot gun wedding laws.
Or how about this. Barack Obama takes the oath only to discover that the Chief Justice has goofed, and he has just sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help him god. Our national security could be terribly threatened. One wrong question by Katie Couric and the entire contents of the presidential Blackberry would be revealed. Or worse—we might find out what the President really thinks about Sara Palin.
No, I think we should take this whole inaugural oath thing a little more seriously. There are just too many consequences for innocent gaffs, which frankly, can happen to anybody, even a Chief Justice of the United States. And heaven help us if a terrorist found his way to a teleprompter. The Chief Justice could inadvertently read an oath that swears the leader of the free world into the Animal House fraternity, Delta Tau Chi. I think you see my concern here.
The solution is simple. Prior to administering the inaugural oath, The Chief Justice should take an oath administered by the outgoing president to faithfully administer the inaugural oath to the best of his abilities. This way, if something goes wrong, we can blame the outgoing president and then question the abilities of the Chief Justice.
But I suppose, that’s what happened anyway.
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