Does the president need to take the oath of office?
As far as C) rewording the oath… Under Austin/Searle’s Speech Act Theory, there are certain phrases, aka Speech Acts, that, actually perform actions when uttering. These types of Speech Acts are called Constatives, and oaths and promises fall into this category (usually). Other examples of constatives: If I say, “I agree,” or “I apologize,” or “I hereby state…”, etc. The things that those words represent become “true” once those words are uttered. But, this only works unless certain criteria are met, called Felicity Conditions (FC’s here out). FC’s require that the person performing the Speech Act has the right to perform that act (authority), is heard by others (authority is perceived/recognized), follows proper procedures/rituals required for that Act, etc. A good example of this in action, and not unlike taking an oath, is wedding vows. If the Felicity Conditions are met, but the actual wording gets botched (the bride or groom says “I will” by accident, we can assume that the ma
Seconding what peanut_mcgillicuty says about Biden being President briefly, though I didn’t hear it on CBS. Assuming it’s even true, I don’t think it’s that extreme, as much as a bit of trivia: consider that Cheney has officially “been President” at least once, while Bush was undergoing surgery. “Chose not to swear on the Bible (let’s say he was a Hindu, Muslim or atheist)” As others said, you don’t have to use the Bible. I seem to recall hearing that a few Presidents haven’t; not for any religious objections, so much as just not doing it. But I don’t recall who. Trivia: “so help me God” is something that almost all Presidents have tacked onto the end, but that’s not actually part of the required verbiage. The show John Adams depicts it as a sort of spontaneous utterance by Washington, distressed at the magnitude of what lay before him. “Decided to re-word the oath in some way” valkyryn nails it. It’s one of the very few things the Constitution actually gets specific on. I heard an NPR
the Constitution says the term of the incoming president begins at noon on Jan. 20No it doesn’t. It says the term of the outgoing president ends at noon on January 20th. That may strongly imply that the term of the incoming president begins at noon on January 20th, but the Constitution does not directly state so.I heard the CBS commentary as well–they made a point of noting that George Bush ceased being president (his presidency “expired” was the term they used) at noon, but Obama was not sworn in until 12:05, so Joe Biden was president for that time.That’s absurd. Biden took an oath, but he no more took the Presidential oath than Obama had at that time. If you’re going to say Obama wasn’t President until he took the Presidential oath, I don’t see why you would let Biden be the President despite the fact that he has never taken the Presidential oath. This much is certain: Bush stopped being President at noon. This much is almost certain: Obama started being President at noon. The Cons
