Strict constructionist Chief Justice flubs oath, Obama presidency survives unscathed

[Dennis Baron]

There's a new post on the Web of Language:

Strict constructionist Chief Justice flubs oath, Obama presidency  
survives unscathed

Article II, sec. i of the U.S. Constitution prescribes the  
presidential oath of office: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I  
will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States  
and will to best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the  
Constitution of the United States."
But Chief Justice Roberts, who administered the oath to Barak Obama,  
is a strict constructionist and didn't feel the need to bring the  
Constitution along to the presidential inaugural. Instead, Roberts  
spoke from memory, flubbing the oath by asking Pres. Obama to repeat  
the phrase, "that I will execute the office of President to the United  
States faithfully."

Roberts, who seems to have inherited his linguistic mangling from the  
president who appointed him, made two errors.  He said "President to  
the United States," and he moved the adverb faithfully to the end of  
the sentence.

Roberts corrected the to when he repeated the phrase, but faithfully  
continued to wander around the 35-word oath, both when Roberts said it  
and when Obama repeated it. This failure to adhere to the letter of  
the Constitution will certainly prompt stricter constructionists than  
the Chief Justice to wonder whether Obama is really our 44th president  
after all. . . .

Find out how to resolve this first constitutional crisis of the Obama  
presidency. Read the rest of the post on the Web of Language.

____________________
Dennis Baron
Professor of English and Linguistics
Department of English
University of Illinois
608 S. Wright St.
Urbana, IL 61801

office: 217-244-0568
fax: 217-333-4321

http://illinois.edu/goto/debaron

read the Web of Language:
http://illinois.edu/goto/weboflanguage







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