President Barack Obama was sworn in today as the 44th president of the United States of America. The swearing-in and the elaborate transition of power ceremony took place near the national mall in Washington, D.C.
Highlight of the inaugural speech, as reported by ABC News: ‘The question we ask today is not whether our government is to big or too small, but whether it works, whether it helps families find jobs at decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account to spend wisely, reform bad habits and do our business in the light of day, because only then we can restore the vital trust between a people and their government’.
To those beyond American boarders, Obama made this pledge: ‘From the grandest capital to the small village my father was born, know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seek the future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more’.
On areas of conflict, he said: We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan…
To the people of poor nations: Obama ‘pledged to work alongside you to make you farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds’.
Obama’s call to the nation: ‘What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility, a recognition on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize grandly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task. This is the price and promise of citizenship’.
On the lighter side, it appears that Obama missed some words in his sworn statement which many believe that he should have delivered flawlessly being a bright student of the American constitution and a Harvard law graduate. However it was discovered later that it was Chief Justice John Roberts who made a mistake.
This is what Roberts was supposed to ask Obama to repeat before him: ‘That I will faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States’.
Instead, Justice Roberts said: ‘That I will execute the office of the President to the United States, faithfully’. Justice Roberts misplaced ‘faithfully’ and added a weird ‘to’ in there as well.
As seen live on worldwide telecast, the new President stared at the Chief Justice as if he wanted to say that the Justice made a mistake and he smiled a little bit.
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