Some people will chalk this next item up to the “Who cares?” file. Others will think it’s important. Should the President-elect be sworn in as “Barack Hussein Obama”? Should he use his middle name? Obama says he WILL use his middle name.
Read below from the Politico:
President-elect Obama says he plans to use all three of his names when he takes the oath of office in January, giving voice to an unusual name that was rarely heard during the campaign expect by critics.
In his first post-election newspaper interview, with reporters from the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, Obama was asked: “Do you anticipate being sworn in as Barack Obama or Barack Hussein Obama?"
He replied: “I think the tradition is that they use all three names, and I will follow the tradition, not trying to make a statement one way or the other. I'll do what everybody else does.”
In fact, all presidents have not used their middle names when taking the oath of office. Jimmy Carter famously went as “Jimmy Carter.” Ronald Wilson Reagan took the oath as simply “Ronald Reagan.”
Harry Truman, of course, didn’t have a middle name - just an initial that didn’t stand for anything — and was sworn in as “Harry S. Truman.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower and Gerald R. Ford took the oath using their middle initials.
The last three presidents have used their middle names: George Herbert Walker Bush, William Jefferson Clinton and George Walker Bush. So did Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Lyndon Baines Johnson, in the hasty ceremony aboard Air Force One, went nameless — prompted to say only, “I do solemnly swear.”
I understand the full name spooks some people and I also understand some people still believe he’s a closet Muslim but look folks, does it really matter how he takes the oath? Seriously? Am I missing something here? I guess technically he could go with Barack H. Obama. Some of his critics probably would like him to go with B.O. because they think the Obama administration will stink.
Wasn’t that a funny line? This little boy thinks so. Click here.