Chief justice, Obama mix up words of Constitutional Oath- is do-over needed?

In the Detroit News today is this fun story- there is nothing serious about this, it's just a neat quirk of the American political system:

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., swearing in a new president for the first time, flubbed the opening words of the oath of office. President Barack Obama, paused, then repeated the right words slightly out of order.

That is what makes the oath Obama took Tuesday before nearly 2 million spectators so interesting. It might be that they didn't witness Obama being sworn in. The Constitution is clear that the oath's 35 words must be spoken exactly.

The presidential oath says, "I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

When Roberts administered the oath, he misplaced the word "faithfully." Obama said, "I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear ... " Roberts continued, "that I will execute the office of the president to the United States faithfully..." Obama paused and then said, "that I will execute ... " Roberts interjected, "faithfully the office of the president of the United States ... " Then, Obama said, "the office of president of the United States faithfully."

Constitutional law experts agree the flub is insignificant. Yet two previous presidents -- Calvin Coolidge and Chester Arthur -- repeated the oath privately because of similar issues.

Lawyers said Obama and his supporters need not be worried about the legitimacy of his presidency: technically, Obama was already president anyway -- the Constitution says the term of the incoming president begins at noon Jan. 20.

Just to emphasize, there is nothing serious in this, but if I were him, I would put any controversy to rest and follow the precedents of Coolidge and Arther and just say it again privately.

Fascinated, I decided to google Coolidge and try to find out about his mess-up with regards to the oath of office. What I found was this, which I think is from his autobiography:

On the night of August 2, 1923, I was awakened by my father coming up the stairs calling my name. I noticed that his voice trembled. As the only times I had ever observed that before were when death had visited our family, I knew that something of the gravest nature had occurred...He placed in my hands an official report and told me that President Harding had just passed away. My wife and I at once dressed.

Meantime, I had been examining the Constitution to determine what might be necessary for qualifying by taking the oath of office. It is not clear that any additional oath is required beyond what is taken by the Vice-President when he is sworn into office. It is the same form as that taken by the President.

Having found this form in the Constitution I had it set up on the typewriter and the oath was administered by my father in his capacity as a notary public, an office he had held for a great many years.

It seemed a simple and natural thing to do at the time, but I can now realize something of the dramatic force of the event.

Pretty interesting, but I don't know if that qualifies as the error similar to that of Obama. Perhaps it wasn't done with the right people, and that's why it was an error? I did find this line at several sources "Coolidge was resworn by a federal official upon his return to Washington," but wasn't about to come up with more information in my modest researching. I did find this site though- it makes some good points about how those of us of a certain age tend to point to Ronald Reagan as "the great conservative of our time"--we forget that Reagan often claimed as his "model President" Calvin Coolidge.

How about Chester A. Arthur?

On September 20, 1881, upon the death of President Garfield, Vice President Arthur received a group at his home in New York City to take the oath of office, administered by New York Supreme court Judge John R. Brady. the next day he again took the oath of office, administered by Chief Justice Morrison Waite, in the Vice President's Office in the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

It looks like to me that the reason he took the oath twice was not because he 'flubbed' it the first time, but because it wasn't official enough, although my research on this was limited.

Now I am bothered by this event, and not the fact that Obama didn't say the words in the right order- I'm bothered by the sloppy and poor job the media did writing about this. Every newspaper is carrying this story, and all are implying the same thing- that past Presidents didn't say the words in the right order and so it's no big deal. But my research indicates that that didn't happen. Again, it doesn't really matter, but if I turned up this in 5 minutes of research, it shows what a bad job our media does, and how easy it is to introduce a false premise into the media, who will then repeat it over and over.

UPDATE: Just to be safe, Obama did take the Oath again. The story is here. I agree with the logic- it isn't really that hard to just re-do it correctly, and would put to rest any weak controversy. I'm still bothered by the weak reporting though, as this story again says that "Two other previous presidents have repeated the oath because of similar issues, Calvin Coolidge and Chester A. Arthur"- but the 'similar issues' are only similar in that they were about repeating the Oath of Office, not about getting the words right. It might be over-analyzing, but I'm pretty sure no one did any research on this line, and it shows.