Well, since the wacky liberal left loved pointing out every time Bush said something wrong... this only seemed appropriate:

I guess we should start an Obama screw up count for screw ups made while president. So far:

* Saying Oath of Office.

Let’s keep adding to this as we see them.

Of course, though, the oath of office screw-up was because Chief Justice Roberts (a Bush appointee, who Obama voted against) quoted the words out of order - and Obama wasn't sure whether to follow Roberts "to execute the office of president of the United States faithfully" or to state it correctly - "To faithfully execute the office of President of the United States"

They ended up covering the bases, by having Roberts re-administer the oath, slowly and carefully, in the map room at the White House, the following day.

Dave, Dave, Dave...

First of all, it's "screwups", not "scewups", but we'll let that go.

Second of all, Obama didn't screw up, Roberts did. He got the oath of office wrong, and BO tried to correct him, but just made matters worse.

Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but everyone's not entitled to change the facts to their own liking.

We love ya, anyway!


mikey

I'll submit at this very early time that this will be a very short thread.

I can't wait to see what SNL does with it

Whether Obama or Roberts (or both) were at fault, they're not alone. Every President in recent memory has screwed up the "oath". This is what the Constitution requires of the person becoming President:

"Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation: '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.'" [Constitution, Article I, Section 1]

So whenever someone adds "so help me God," they've "screwed up".

To me, the "so help me God " part always sounded like a parental threat... something like... "you'll do as I say, so help you God." Anyone understand what I'm trying to say???

Yes. It reminds of the phrase, "(If I don't.....",....."May I be struck by lightning!"

i remember hearing those words and wondering..."is that the way it goes?"
not that i knew anything otherwise...but was curious?

sometimes i feel like one of those aliens from that show 3rd rock?

i actually said that outloud to myself the other day and the person standing nearby replied,
"i sometimes wonder if you're not one of those aliens on 3rd rock." they weren't being mean :)

I hear you, Terrie. To me, it means: "I'll uphold the Constitution unless God tells me not to."

that is an interesting take?

"So help me God"isn't in the constitution?? I have been living under a rock! I did not know someone could just arbitrarily punctuate the executive oath with the Almighty! Anyone know how often it has happened??

His screwups may/will be few, but rest assured that they will all be documented here. I love him as the best president ever, but "feet to the fire" is a good mantra for us. He cannot keep his position as the best if he gets a free ride. He must remain above reproach, and it's our job to make it so.

Good point Ceashel. So, let's see. the lists.....screw-ups in one column and major accomplishments and initiatives in the other. After only a few days in office, we can list in the latter column a ban on torture and ordering Guantanamo shut down, the inaugural oath faux pas in the former---not bad for his first week!

Um, so far all he's done in office is sign his name to a piece of paper - we'll see if Guantanamo is actually shut down... I have my doubts. And more on that subject...

Barack Obama signed an order pledging to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay within in a year, but without offering a solution for the current detainees. That little detail takes on a little more significance after a report in the New York Times about the career of a released Gitmo inmate. After getting sprung from Gitmo, Said al-Shihri became a leader of the al-Qaeda network in Yemen:


The war on terror is no game. These people intend to kill us in large numbers, and unless we take that seriously, they will succeed. It’s not the same as using the exclusionary rule to return a burglar to the streets rather than offend tender sensibilities because someone filled out a warrant incorrectly. Al-Qaeda is not the Gambino crime family, and a law-enforcement approach will not defeat them — as the entire decade of the 1990s proved.

How did Shirhi get released? He told the Gitmo tribunals that he only traveled to Iran and Afghanistan to get carpets for his family’s store. The Pentagon’s dossier on Abu Sayyaf showed that he trained at a terrorist camp outside of Kabul, went to Iran to bring extremists into Afghanistan, and wanted to assassinate a writer on which a mullah had placed a fatwa for his writings. Shihri was fortunate that his review came at a time when the Bush administration was getting enormous pressure to reduce the number of inmates at Gitmo, and Shihri went into the Saudi rehab program. A year later, Shihri disappeared — and now he’s running the AQ network in Yemen.

Half of the remaining detainees come from Yemen, and would have to be returned to Yemen. The Yemenis have allowed terrorist suspects to break out of prison or have set them free on their own recognizance repeatedly. The Yemen branch of AQ has grown, and the addition of more than a hundred Gitmo detainees will only assist in that process.