Blogging the Inauguration

As most everyone familiar with his skill as an orator would have expected, President Barack Obama gave an inspiring, uplifting speech where he recalled the greatness of America past and challenged the nation to reclaim that greatness.

This writer did not vote for the new president and admits a degree of trepidation about what the Obama administration holds for our country. However, he is the President of all Americans and every citizen should hope and pray that he will live up to the brightest expectations of his ardent army of supporters. In a time of troubles, all of us should be working together for our common good. May the Lord bless our new President with wisdom and judgment to carry us forward in the direction we need to go.

Without meaning to dampen in any way the spirit of the day, we should note that things can only get better than the beginning of the inaugural ceremony. Several minutes behind schedule, the new president did not take the oath of office until several minutes after noon, eastern standard time. The 20th amendment states that presidential and vice-presidential terms end at noon on January 20th. Section 1 of Article II of the Constitution states that a new president must take the oath of office before he shall "enter on the Execution of his Office." Since Vice-President Biden had already been sworn into office, presumably he was actually the acting president for those few minutes when we listened to the musical performance. It doesn't matter in retrospect, but had some great emergency taken place, it could have made for some awkward moments (or worse) as they stood around trying to figure out who the president actually was.

Then the bungling of the presidential oath was embarrassing. I haven't heard a replay and don't know for sure if the Chief Justice or the new President is responsible for the mistake.

Finally, President Obama made a historical faux pas when he claimed to be the 44th person to take the presidential oath of office. Somebody ought to have caught that Grover Cleveland is counted as both the 22nd and 24th presidents since he served non-consecutive terms. In reality, Barack Obama is the 43rd man to be president even though he will be called the 44th president.

None of these things is significant. But as the old saying goes, the devil is in the details. The Obama administration did not get off to a good start in taking care of details.