"Faithful" service ... to grammar?

Much hay has been made of the Flub (Literally) Heard 'Round the World, when Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts misspoke the presidential oath he was reciting to Barack Obama on Tuesday, causing the new Commander-in-Chief to awkwardly repeat the mistake. Not only did it ruin one of the most important video clips in recent history, but it caused conspiracy theorists and a few pundits into wondering what it all meant. Was Obama in fact the President since he had recited the oath incorrectly? Had Roberts made a Freudian slip, perhaps conscious or unconscious revenge against Obama after the former Illinois Senator had voted against Roberts' confirmation to the Court in 2005? What was it all about, Alfie?

To be extra careful, and perhaps to shut up the Drudges of the world, Roberts and Obama did a correct do-over of the oath Wednesday night. And the do-over was welcomed despite the general consensus that Obama became president at noon on Tuesday while Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman were jamming on the Capitol steps. (The bungled oath came about five minutes later.) Now Stephen Pinker, a professor of psychology at Harvard University (the alma mater of both Obama and Roberts), as well as the chairman of the usage panel of the American Heritage Dictionary, has written an interesting piece for The New York Times about the incident and how it's not the first time a prominent person has played fast and loose with their words on the world stage.

Pinker compares the Roberts boo-boo with situations like Neil Armstrong's "man" versus "mankind" quotation when he hit the Moon with both feet in 1969, or Princess Diana mixing up the several names of Prince Charles when they married in 1981. (Look how well that union worked out.) He then points out that Roberts is a "famous stickler for grammar", to the point that he once corrected a Bob Dylan lyric ("When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to use") in a Supreme Court decision. In the case of the presidential oath, which is explicitly written in the Constitution, Pinker wonders if Roberts may have been fighting the machine that is the "split verb":

in which an adverb comes between an infinitive marker like “to,” or an auxiliary like “will,” and the main verb of the sentence.

The line in the oath that goes, "I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States," would fall under that split-verb rule, and could explain why Roberts, or something inside of him, took it upon himself to "edit" the Founding Fathers by moving the adverb "faithfully" to its proper position at the end of the sentence.

Of course, that doesn't explain Roberts' other major error, when he said "President to the United States". But nobody's perfect, not even a Harvard graduate.

Mr. President ...

Now let's get to work.

Barack Obama, the first second fifth African-American President of the United States ...

A week after Barack Obama was elected President of the United States - yeah, it's still pretty damn cool to consider that a black man is about to move into the White House, and that he isn't going to be the butler. But let's not fool ourselves that Obama's victory is that much of a breakthrough. Indeed, this country's history contains more than one example of a person of Negro persuasion making it to the highest office in the land. You just have to know where to look - in your local video store, of course.

1972: Before he was Darth Vader or the voice of CNN, James Earl Jones held the job of commander-in-chief in The Man, a heavy melodrama based on the Irving Wallace political thriller and adapted for the screen by no less than Rod Serling. Jones played Douglass Dillman, the President pro tempe of the Senate who reached the Oval Office when the sitting Chief Executive and Speaker of the House were killed in a building collapse in West Germany (!) and the dying Vice President declined the promotion on the grounds that America didn't need to bury another grand poobah in six months. Needless to say, this being the early '70s, the idea of Jones in the White House doesn't sit well with, oh, just about everyone surrounding him, and before long President Dillman has to contend not only with white racist politicians (including a Southern-dipped Burgess Meredith), but also with African-Americans, including his own radical daughter, who want him to take more of a stand on their issues. Nevertheless, Dillman navigates the treacherous waters with skill and aplomb, and of course has the best president voice ever. This movie actually isn't available on DVD as of now, but Obama's real-life ascendance to the top spot may speed things up in terms of home availability for The Man.

1998: Morgan Freeman was the next man to break the White House color barrier in Deep Impact, which also began a mini-tradition of America having a black president just in time to deal with The End of the World - in this case, a comet (co-discovered by future Hobbit Elijah Wood) on its way for a mid-air collision with the Earth. As Tom Beck, Freeman doesn't have much to do but stay stoic and keep convincing his constituents that "we will prevail," even if he doesn't really believe it. But he looks so good behind the Oval Office desk, you think about drafting him for the next election.




2001: The action-thriller series 24 debuts, and with it a new hero in David Palmer (Dennis Haysbert), the African-American senator from Maryland who is running for the highest office in the land during the inaugural season, which takes place entirely on the day before the California primary. Palmer manages to survive not only an attempted assassination, but also the machinations of his Lady MacBeth-like wife, Sherry, and by the second season Palmer was indeed the president, though his days didn't get much easier. Indeed, each of the first three seasons was devoted to Palmer dealing with threats against his life, his country and/or his administration. But Palmer himself always came out on top, or at least alive - that is, until the opening moments of Season Five, when he is shot through the throat while writing his memoirs, proving that a lot of good deeds do not go unpunished. Still, Palmer's death was the opening salvo in what was probably the best 24 season to date, so there's that.



2007: In a move that would make the Kennedy kids beam with pride, Palmer's brother Wayne (D.B. Woodside) assumed the reigns of power for 24's sixth season. Unfortunately for Wayne, though, things didn't get much easier for the sitting President - especially when he was blown up and seriously injured by a bomb in an inside job meant to frame an alleged Muslim terrorist. What's worse than nearly being killed by a would-be assassin? Watching Vice-President Powers Boothe ham it up as your square-jawed replacement.



And, yeah, while all of these instances of a black president are fiction, there are some who indeed feel that Obama is not the first of his ethnicity to become the main man of the U.S. There were rumors about Warren G. Harding, the 29th President, concerning his heritage that circulated during his successful 1920 run for the White House. Reports that Harding had a little color in his background were rebuffed by his campaign manager, who maintained that the candidate was of "the finest pioneer blood," and they were quickly forgotten, though there was no DNA test at the time to prove things one way or another. (Another celebrity of the age who had to deal with such rumors? Babe Ruth.) And, of course, there are those who say, with tongue embedded in cheek, that one William Jefferson Clinton, with his soulful style and empathy for the regular guy, was the true first black president - though I would assume that Bill will defer that title to the soon-to-be occupant.

Remind me ... are these guys pro-American or anti-American?

Well, we knew it was coming, and we probably knew it would be this wacky. With one week until one of the most pivotal presidential elections in U.S. history, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (and boy, don't those things go together?) have broken up a plot to assassinate Barack Obama and many more African Americans in a crime spree that would have covered America. Allegedly two young outstanding skinheads planned to invade an all-black high school, kill 88 students - 14 by decapitation, the fine art of separating the head from the body - and then keep on killing until they reached the Democratic nominee, whom they wanted to shoot to death from their car to his. And, as it to channel Fred Astaire or some such, they wanted to wear white tuxedos and top hats as they attempted to snuff Obama out. (Why do I suspect that crystal meth is involved with this somehow?) Fortunately, the bozos - who apparently knew they would die as well as they targeted Obama - were busted in Tennessee before they could carry out their dastardly deeds, or accidentally shoot each other in the process because they were so hopped up on something at the time.

When is this election done again?