Hush up now. Everything’s fine. Somebody will be along to collect your guns shortly.
Nobody has ever redone it because of a flub before.
Depends on how you define “flub”. If you mean “messed up the wording”, you’re correct. But if it means any sort of disqualification, then the qualifications of Coolidge’s father count too.
My own view is that anyone empowered to administer an oath (including a state or local official) may administer the presidential oath. The Constitution does not require that it be administered by a Federal official. George Washington was first sworn in by Robert Livingston, the chancellor (top judge, at the time) of New York State, in 1789, and no one then or since has suggested he wasn’t properly sworn in.
I’ll add Ronald Reagan to the list of those privately sworn in when January 20 fell on a Sunday (in 1985), followed by a bigger public ceremony the next day.
I know people say this, but I’ve never seen a good explanation why. Nothing in the Constitution prescribes or proscribes the oath giver. It doesn’t even state explicitly that the president can’t just recite the oath all by himself. So why doesn’t Coolidge’s father count as much as anybody else?
As far as I can tell, the Constitution doesn’t require that the oath be administered at all.
From what I see, it ought to suffice for someone to introduce the President(-Elect), and for him to turn towards the audience, and recite the words as prescribed, and that’s it.
Yes, as I just posted (which you beat me to it while I was looking up the exact text), it shouldn’t matter who administers it. My comment about Coolidge’s father was addressed to the overwhelmingly large number of people - including Coolidge himself, it seems - who feel that it does matter.
But in Obama’s case, it wasn’t only Roberts who flubbed the wording. Obama too misplaced the word “faithfully”, so it definitely does count as a flub.
True, although there weren’t yet any federal judges (or federal courts) in April of 1789 when Washington was sworn in.
How about a president/chief justice too stupid to consider the solution of printing it out and reading it.