Obama Sworn in Today as 44th US President

Lawyer and former senator Barack Obama will be sworn in today as the 44th president of the United States of America. Obama will be the first black African-American president in the country’s history. He will be sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts at 12 noon today before a crowd estimated at two million. He will be sworn in at the west front of the US congress facing the National Mall.

Joe Biden, also a lawyer and former senator, will likewise be sworn in as the next US Vice-President. He will take his oath from Associate Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.

Earlier Obama said, ‘In the course of our history, only a handful of generations have been asked to confront challenges as serious as the ones we face right now. Our nation is at war. Our economy is in crises’.

‘I don’t pretend that meeting any one of these challenges will be easy. It will take more than a year. It will likely take many’, Obama said in a report by Bulletin today

But never forget that the true character of our nation is revealed not during time of comfort and ease, but by the right we do when the moment is hard. I ask you to help reveal that character once more, and together we can forward as one nation, and one people, the legacy of our forefathers that that we celebrate today’.

The inauguration festivities coincide with the country’s national holiday Monday honoring the civil rights giant Martin Luther King, Jr. who Obama saluted as opening the door to his barrier-breaking triumph.

After the tumultuous Bush years, Obama comes to the office with the highest poll ratings since Ronald Reagan in 1981. The New York Times and CBS News said 79 per cent of respondents to its poll were optimistic about the next four years.

In his inaugural speech, Obama will most likely coin a slogan that will become the rallying point of his presidency, just like John F. Kennedy when he said in his inaugural speech: ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country’. In the case of former president Bill Clinton, he said: ‘Today we celebrate the mystery of American renewal’.

On his first day in office Wednesday, the aides said Obama will convene its top military brass to map a way out of Iraq and recommit US troops against a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan.