What a difference between the two.
President Bush couldn't speak publicly with any real meaning or emotion. He couldn't find the words or the tone to show how he truly felt.
President Obama could get just about anybody to stand up and support him. Every word was believable. You want as much as anything to believe that he will do what he says he will do.
Listening to his speech today gave me chills. I was proud of this country that we were able to look past the color of his skin and instead looked at the content of his character.
In my opinion this is the type of President that we need right now. Someone who brings people together no matter their walk of life. Someone who brings new faith to the position. Someone who is strong enough to carry the weight of this country and its imperfections on his shoulders. And someone who can get the people of this country to believe in each other and focus on the whole instead of the individual.
He is what we need right now....a common man who can't get through the swearing in without a slip up or two. Someone who isn't perfect and doesn't try to be.
He isn't perfect nor does he try to be. He is human. And that is what we need right now.
2 comments:
Chief Justice Fumbles
January 20, 2009 12:45 PM
Chief Justice John Roberts is a man who has made very few public missteps in his life -- but he appears to have made one when swearing in Barack Obama. After Obama stepped on the first line of the oath, Roberts then slightly flubbed the next bit--which then tripped up Obama.
You'd think two brilliant Harvard Law grads who are both serious students of the Constitution (and obviously know the words of the oath by heart) would nail this one, but, then again, who among us has made history standing before two million people on a freezing January day?
The oath is contained in the Constitution:
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
But when Obama jumped in sooner than Roberts expected, Roberts flipped some of the words, saying: "I will execute the office of president to the United States faithfully."
Here's the transcript:
ROBERTS: Are you prepared to take the oath, Senator?
OBAMA: I am.
ROBERTS: I, Barack Hussein Obama...
OBAMA: I, Barack...
ROBERTS: ... do solemnly swear...
OBAMA: I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear...
ROBERTS: ... that I will execute the office of president to the United States faithfully...
OBAMA: ... that I will execute...
ROBERTS: ... faithfully the office of president of the United States...
OBAMA: ... the office of president of the United States faithfully...
ROBERTS: ... and will to the best of my ability...
OBAMA: ... and will to the best of my ability...
ROBERTS: ... preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
OBAMA: ... preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
ROBERTS: So help you God?
OBAMA: So help me God.
ROBERTS: Congratulations, Mr. President.
UPDATE: It's worth pointing out that Chief Justice William Howard Taft, who had been President himself, also flubbed the oath when he was swearing in Herbert Hoover in 1929. When Taft administered the oath, he said, "preserve, maintain and defend the Constitution," instead of "preserve, PROTECT, and defend." So where Roberts flipped a couple of words, Taft substituted an entirely new one.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/legalities/2009/01/chief-justice-f.html
Well said my friend, I couldn't have said it better myself. haha!
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