Flubbing the Oath

Note to self: if ever asked to administer the oath of office to the incoming President of the United States, practice. And use notes.

It struck me as bad enough that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court flubbed the oath. After all, the world was watching, America at its finest was on display, and this was a high moment for the unlikely candidate who had risen from obscurity and, shall we say, "non-traditional beginnings" to the threshold of the highest office in the land. It was a high moment, also, for all those who may or may not have voted for him but who had come to see in him the embodiment of a dream and the threshold of a new and better tomorrow. It was a ceremonial but also a symbolic moment -- a seminal moment -- and the Chief Justice for some reason just thought he would "wing it."

But then he added insult to injury by stumbling precisely over the word "faithfully." I suppose it shouldn't surprise me. People have been stumbling over the notion of faithfulness for a long time -- marital, political, as well as religious. The Chief Justice was, I suppose, only manifesting our cultural ambivalence toward the idea. We have become far more attuned to expedience and indulgence and convenience and self-interest. "Faithfulness" can be, after all, so confining. It commits and connects an individual to wider interests, to others' concerns, to broader needs than just those the individual may be personally experiencing. And it places certain demands on a person -- that she or he be, as the dictionary suggests, "true to one's word, promises, vows," and "reliable." Ah! Virtues so...quaint.

Not that they have any relevance to the Presidency. I can see why the Chief Justice viewed the word to be so airy and flimsy that he could bat it around the oath like a beach ball on a windy day.

Right.

I was amused that by nightfall of the second day in office, the Chief Justice reappeared in the White House where a "do-over" of the oath was successfully accomplished. Someone in the legal department apparently felt like they should eliminate any question of legitimacy. Fine. I'm happy they got it right. More than anything, however, I am simply delighted to hear that someone still feels that oaths -- promises, vows, commitments -- and, presumably faithfulness to them, are relevant at all.