Obama starts second term as president

With family at his side, U.S.’ 1st black president sworn in

President Barack Obama is officially sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts in the Blue Room of the White House on Sunday. Next to Obama are first lady Michelle Obama, holding the Robinson family Bible, and daughters Malia and Sasha.
President Barack Obama is officially sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts in the Blue Room of the White House on Sunday. Next to Obama are first lady Michelle Obama, holding the Robinson family Bible, and daughters Malia and Sasha.

— With only his family nearby, President Barack Obama was sworn into office in the White House on Sunday morning in advance of today’s public pomp, the private moment forced by a rare quirk of the constitutional calendar but appropriately capturing the downsized expectations for his second term.

Even today’s festivities, with the traditional inaugural parade, balls and not least, the re-enactment outside the Capitol of Obama’s swearing-in, will be less spectacular than four years ago, with fewer parties planned and fewer people expected to swarm the National Mall.

The private but official swearing in of the 44th president at 10:55 a.m. Central time was just the seventh such event in history to be held before the public ceremony, and the first since Ronald Reagan’s second inaugural, each one occurring because the constitutionally mandated date for the inauguration fell on a Sunday. Recorded and televised minutes later, the simple scene suggested a couple marrying before a justice of the peace, with a big ceremony and party planned for later.

Only Michelle Obama, holding her family Bible, and the couple’s daughters, Malia and Sasha, stood beside Obama in the grand Blue Room as he recited the oath specified in the Constitution and again administered to him by Chief Justice John Roberts.

The chief justice administered the oath faithfully and Obama repeated it accurately, unlike four years earlier, when Roberts inverted a few words during the public swearing-in, Obama echoed the errors, and the oath had to be repeated in private later. The chief justice this time took no chances: He read the oath from a printed text.

After they finished, Roberts congratulated Obama, who thanked him twice as the two shook hands. Obama next embraced his wife and daughters in turn. His younger daughter, Sasha, said, “Good job, Daddy,” and he replied, “I did it!” only to have her joke, in reference to the problem four years earlier: “You didn’t mess up.” Obama laughed as he turned to the pool of reporters and about a dozen relatives, saying, “Thank you, everybody” before he left the room.

Vice President Joe Biden was sworn in earlier at his residence on the grounds of the Naval Observatory, using the same 19th-century family Bible he has used in every swearing-in ceremony since he entered the Senate in 1973.


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At Biden’s request, the oath was delivered by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. He was surrounded by family members, including his wife, Jill.

Afterward, Biden shook the justice’s hand, turned to a large audience of family, friends and close political associates, and expressed his warm thanks. Sotomayor, he noted, was due in New York and had a car waiting to take her to Union Station. “Madame Justice, it’s been an honor, a great honor,” he said.

Biden then left for Arlington National Cemetery, where he joined Obama in laying a wreath before the Tomb of the Unknowns.

The president and his family later traveled to Washington to the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church, a historic church with a long record of activism against racial prejudice - it once harbored runaway slaves - to worship and to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday. The federal holiday honoring King coincides this year with Inauguration Day.

The congregation was enthusiastic, according to pool reports, and the sermon ended with a boisterous call and response of “Forward” - the president’s one-word campaign slogan.

These events took place mostly out of view of the hundreds of thousands who have poured into Washington for the second inauguration of the nation’s first black president, a more restrained affair than four years ago but still significant in the nation’s history.

The president has said King is one of two people he admires “more than anybody in American history.” President Abraham Lincoln is the other. Obama will take his ceremonial oath of office today using the two men’s Bibles - Lincoln’s, which Obama also used in 2009, will rest on top of King’s, which is larger.

“The movements they represent are the only reason that it’s possible for me to be inaugurated,” Obama said in a video released by inaugural planners.

But there are distinctions in King’s and Obama’s styles. While King was a staunch advocate for the poor and downtrodden, Obama has been faulted by critics who say he’s been reluctant to push issues of concern to black people and take steps to reduce high rates of black unemployment. Where King opposed wars in general and was an unwavering advocate of nonviolence, Obama has shown himself to be willing to target and kill leaders of terrorist groups overseas.

The oaths mark not only the official start of the second Obama-Biden term but also a certain demarcation between the challenges of the first term - winding down two wars, dealing with an economic recession, passage of landmark health-care legislation amid fierce partisan wrangling - and the typically more modest agenda of a second-term president.

Across Washington, the mood was festive on Sunday as final preparations for today’s events, from morning prayers to glamorous balls, parties and candlelight celebrations in the evening, were completed.

Flags have sprouted on official Washington facades, bunting adorns banks and luxury hotels, tall metal barriers and cumbersome concrete ones are in place to block or divert traffic, and the gleaming white presidential reviewing stand, with its bulletproof windows and steeply sloped roof, awaits the arrival of the official parade today.

A crowd of up to 700,000 is expected to assemble on the National Mall for the inaugural festivities, while millions more watch on television.

The District of Columbia’s homeland security director, Chris Geldart, said Sunday that the estimate was knocked down from up to 800,000. The estimates are based in part on charter bus arrivals, and hotel and restaurant reservations.

Meanwhile, dignitaries and celebrities participated in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, Martin Luther King III, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, comedian Dick Gregory, and actors Jamie Foxx and Chris Tucker were among those who attended Sunday’s event.

The White House’s Blue Room, with its royal blue and gold carpet and French Empire-style ornamentation, has long been used for White House receptions. President Grover Cleveland married his much younger bride, Frances Folsom, there on June 2, 1886, as John Philip Sousa led the Marine Band in a rendition of the “Wedding March” from a nearby hall. James Monroe sipped tea there with Great Plains Indian leaders. The main White House Christmas tree graces the room each year.

In recent weeks, White House officials, apparently hoping to keep the public focus on today’s ceremonies, had hinted that reporters would be excluded from the swearing-in on Sunday.

There is precedent for that approach: When Inauguration Day fell on a Sunday in 1877, Chief Justice Morrison Waite administered the oath to Rutherford B. Hayes in the Red Room with no one else present; the private swearing in had come as a complete surprise to the public, with a news report at the time saying it had remained a “profound secret.”

This year, the White House ultimately decided to allow a small pool of reporters and a network television camera crew record the event.

But there was not much to record; the president was saving his speech making for today, when he is expected to deliver an Inaugural Address of about 20 minutes from the western steps of the Capitol. One of his senior advisers, David Plouffe, said Sunday on the ABC program This Week that while Obama would lay out his vision for a second term, “the detailed blueprint and ideas will be in the State of the Union” address on Feb. 12.

Information for this article was contributed by Jackie Calmes and Brian Knowlton of The New York Times; and by Darlene Superville, Eric Tucker and Kate Brumback of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 01/21/2013

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