Newdow seeks injuction to prevent P.E. Obama from saying

[Guest Raidne]

[quote name='Tempra' post='1656634' date='Jan 21 2009, 08.18']Maybe you haven't heard Obama speak all that much, but he is arguably the most religious president we've had in a long time. He's definitely on par with bush. What makes you think he would have ANY reservation about saying SHMG?

I seriously wouldn't be surprised if Obama has already invoked God more times in the past 1.5 years than Bush did in the 8-9 years that he's been on the national scene.[/quote]

For maybe the only time [i]ever[/i], I agree with Tempra.

For my money, I don't care about the SHMG thing because I think the President should be able to say that if it has meaning to him, but I do think it's weird that the President asks that we pray with him at the inauguration. It seems really out of place.

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

[quote name='Tempra' post='1656823' date='Jan 21 2009, 18.27']"Before the commencement of this lawsuit, the Chief Justice instructed me to ascertain from President-Elect Obama’s representatives the President-Elect’s wishes concerning the administration of the oath of office at the inauguration, including his wishes concerning the inclusion of the phrase ‘So help me God’ after the conclusion of the constitutional oath. . . [b]An authorized representative of the President-Elect has informed me that the President-Elect wishes to conclude the oath with the phrase ‘So help me God’ "[/b]

[url="http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/01/12/obama-so-help-me-god-i-want-to-speak-the-words/"]http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/01/12/obama-...peak-the-words/[/url][/quote]

Thanks. I hadn't seen that article before. From what I can tell, the wording is rather vague. It still doesn't say that Obama wanted SHMG in the administration of the oath, just that [i]he[/i] wanted to conclude the oath with that phrase.

Nonetheless, that's splitting hairs. It's now very unlikely (or even more unlikely) that Obama said to Roberts, "Hey, you stop at 'United States' and I'll add 'so help me God' on my own." He just said, "Yeah, I want to say it. It's important to me."

[TheKassi]

[quote name='Marie-Angélieef' post='1656933' date='Jan 21 2009, 09.39']Thanks. I hadn't seen that article before. From what I can tell, the wording is rather vague. It still doesn't say that Obama wanted SHMG in the administration of the oath, just that [i]he[/i] wanted to conclude the oath with that phrase.

Nonetheless, that's splitting hairs. It's now very unlikely (or even more unlikely) that Obama said to Roberts, "Hey, you stop at 'United States' and I'll add 'so help me God' on my own." He just said, "Yeah, I want to say it. It's important to me."[/quote]

It is Obama's prerogative to select who administers the oath. Roberts doesn't get to show up on stage without an invitation. The person elected next time could have a random social security number selected, and ask the individual who matched the number to give the oath.

Chief Justice Roberts lacked any sort of authority here, save for the ability to refuse Obama's invitation. At worst, he could have said something along the lines of “President Elect Obama, forgive me but I am not willing to accept this honor if you are going to ignore the past seventy years of tradition.”

Thats it. That is the only leverage he had. If you do not want to affirm your oath with so help me god, you are going to have to select one of the other seven billion people in the world to give the oath. I would start by asking your wife. Likely she will be cool with it.

Given that many Presidents have called on people other then the current Chief Justice to give the oath, thats really not leverage someone could use to force the President Elect to do something they do not wish to.

One can argue that Obama only stuck with current tradition to be politic. That he doesn't think it is important to have the Chief Justice give the oath, or to affirm the oath with so help me god. That he only selected the Chief Justice, and only instructed him as he did because he didn't wish to make waves in already troubled times.

I doubt such an argument would be correct, but that is at least possible.

It is however very hard to argue that Roberts did anything Obama didn't wish him to. He served only at Obama's desire.

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

Your last line pretty much sums up the post I made. I am not sure why you added the rest of it.

[TheKassi]

You pointed out that the article didn't say that Obama wished Roberts to prompt him. In retrospect however it is rather unlikely that Roberts wasn't acting under explicit instructions.

I pointed out that there was never a hair to split. Because of who holds authority over this event, and who is given ultimate discretion over nearly every aspect of it, hindsight wasn't required to conclude everything Obama was given discretion over was consistent with his wishes.

That is only an important distinction because of the nature of this thread, but given all the talk about how this was a suit against Roberts and not Obama, that distinction is important.