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News-Sentinel.com Your Town. Your Voice.
Opening Arguments

Lip service

Tomorrow, when Barack Obama becomes the 43rd American to take the oath of office of president of the United States, he will not swear (or affirm) to preserve American values. He will not swear (or affirm) to protect American. He will not swear (or affirm) to defend this nation's borders. He will swear (or affirm) that he will, to the best of his ability, "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Just wanted to clear that up, since the Constitution figures so little in the federal government these days.

Comments

tim zank
Mon, 01/19/2009 - 11:26am

What's a "constitution"? Seems as though I've heard of that.

Bob G.
Mon, 01/19/2009 - 11:38am

I remember when "hired" into the FEDs, they do the OATH things and get you all sworn in, and the ONLY thing I thought of at the moment was the old 3 Stooges gig when they were in court:

Clerk: "Do you Swear..."
Curley: "No, but I know all the woids".

Seriously though, I DID take the oath to heart...still do, and the "protect, preserve and defend" aspect of the Constitution MEANS what it says for all the people of these United States.
After all, no one ever "un-oathed" me...right?
(now, if we could get the POLITICIANS on this bandwagon...)

;)

Steve G
Mon, 01/19/2009 - 5:30pm

Won't Mr. Obama become president #44?? Or are the politically correct going overboard to eliminate any mention of George W. Bush?

Steve G
Mon, 01/19/2009 - 5:37pm

Oh wait! You got me! Grover Cleveland was #22 and #24. Thus 43 Americans taking the oath of office.

Steve G
Tue, 01/20/2009 - 9:45pm

Now just as you got me on the number of Americans that have taken the oath of office, the new president cannot count also and in his speech identified that 44 Americans have taken the oath. Not one news report that I have seen has addressed that issue. This shows how little we care about the history of nation and the impact history has on current events. Bush 43 was not the first president to win the presidency and lose the popular vote. Yet, so few people were aware of that fact.

tim zank
Tue, 01/20/2009 - 10:41pm

SteveG...nobody pays attention to history anymore, that is soooo last century. All they pay attention to are polls. Instant answers, instant gratification, drive thru mentality.

It matters not what happened before, or what happens in the future, it matters what happens right this minute.

Unfortunately.

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