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Courtesy Ronald Reagan Library
President Ronald Reagan is sworn in for his second term in a private ceremony on Jan. 20, 1985, with his wife, Nancy Reagan, at his side and Chief Justice Warren Burger administering the oath in the White House Cross Hall, Grand Staircase.
Updated at 12:15 p.m. ET: For the first time since Ronald Reagan’s second term, a president has taken the oath of office for a term first in a private ceremony at the White House.
The Constitution says that the president must take office on Jan. 20. But if that's a Sunday, public inaugural festivities -- which for Obama will include a re-enactment of the swearing-in from Chief Justice John Roberts -– are saved for Monday.
So, Obama's swearing-in Sunday was a brief private affair in the Blue Room of the White House, an ornate oval room often used to receive official guests. Only Obama’s immediate family and a few reporters attended. The ceremony was televised live and streamed live on the Internet.
Reagan’s official ceremony took place at the grand North Entrance Hall to the White House, a roomy foyer where tours of the home exit onto Pennsylvania Avenue. Still, seating was limited so guests included family members of Reagan and Vice President George H.W. Bush as well as a smattering of legislative leaders and reporters.
The 1985 swearing-in of the president known as the Great Communicator was televised live. The ceremony was strikingly brief -- a few minutes at most. Reagan placed his left hand on a Bible given to him by his mother, then clearly repeated the 37-word oath recited by Chief Justice Warren Burger.
Courtesy Ronald Reagan Library
President Reagan being sworn in for second term by Warren Burger during the "private" ceremony held at the White House
He then gave first lady Nancy a kiss, posed for a picture and briskly walked with Bush to the North Portico, where the two waved at White House press corps reporters outside.
That Sunday, however, might be better remembered for Super Bowl XIX between the San Francisco 49ers and the Miami Dolphins, which was played at Stanford Stadium in California.
A former California governor, Reagan made the opening coin toss from the White House. It was broadcast on TV via satellite hookup.
Quarterback Joe Montana, MVP of the game, threw three touchdown passes and ran for another in a 38-16 win over the Dan Marino-led Dolphins. The game was watched by some 85 million people.
Obama was sworn in well before kickoff of Championship Sunday games, in which teams vying for this year's Super Bowl will take the field.
So, why not just skip the rerun swearing-in on Monday?
According to Meena Bose, a professor and presidential scholar at Hofstra University in New York, since the Constitution calls only for a presidential transition at noon and the oath -- and nothing more -- that’s possible. But inaugural celebrations are a tradition that goes back to George Washington.
“It would be a big problem politically for the president and his supporters and fundraisers. I'm not sure it would make a big difference to the public at large if there were no big celebrations, especially for the second inauguration,” Bose said.
“In the 1980s, there was a sense that celebration was good," Bose said. "These are much tougher times now for the country, so it’s certainly an occasion for celebration, but it’s a more workmanlike state of mind now than it was 28 years ago.”
In fact it was so bitterly cold in Washington in 1985 that the traditional outdoor inauguration was moved indoors to the Rotunda at the Capitol.
Reagan's son Ron Reagan, who provides commentary on msnbc, recalls the unusually severe temperatures and how they affected the events that Monday.
"Privileged attendees ended up packed like anchovies under the Capitol dome: family members, justices, new Cabinet members, scoundrels," Ron Reagan said in an email. "At least some of the parade was canceled over concerns that brass instruments would freeze to the lips of young marching band trumpeters, creating a grisly and appalling spectacle."
Obama will take it outdoors to the plaza at the Capitol, where he will take the oath again and give his inaugural address. The inaugural also coincides with Martin Luther King Day. An estimated 1.8 million people, the most ever to attend a inaugural ceremony, attended Obama's first inauguration, and more than 600,000 are expected to attend on Monday.
The weather forecast is partly cloudy with a high of 42 degrees and a low of 23, according to The Weather Channel.
Woodrow Wilson was the first president to be sworn into office on a Sunday, according to the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies website. Wilson took the office privately in the President's Room in the U.S. Capitol by Chief Justice Edward D. White. First lady Edith Bolling Wilson noted in her diary that she was the only woman present among the officials there that day.
"This simple ceremony (I was the only woman present) was more to our taste than the formal Inauguration which followed on Monday, March 5th," she wrote.
Abraham Lincoln swore the oath in front of an incomplete Capitol dome. Lyndon B. Johnson became president on Air Force One next to a dazed Jacqueline Kennedy. A collection of photographs from past presidential inaugurations.
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Should read, "Like Richard Nixon, Obama takes oath twice.".
By the time we get to the bottom of Benghazigate that will be the most pertinent analogy.
No one but the GOP cares about Benghazi. We all see what a political circus they've made it.
Over 200 dead in US embassy raids under Bush yet not one GOP word...
First ambassador killed in 30 years, and by an al qaeda affiliate at that.
Purposefully ignored pleas to increase security.
Brave americans asking to come to their aid ordered to "stand down".
No attempt to mobilize rescue forces to help.
You'd have to be a retard not to care about a colossal administrative failure like that. If you're saying all democrats are retards, I'd have to agree. They do like sweeping dead ambassadors under the rug, don't they?
Well all you teatards, birthers, flat earthers, religious fanatics, mindless dittoheads, evolution deniers, Fox noise cultist, conspiracy theorist, gun crazies and all around 15th century Republicans ---as I said months ago, you better get used to President Obama because he's not leaving office until January 2017. Mitt Romney was one of the most worthless candidates in the history of this nation with no ideas to fix anything other than the failed policies of the past. And if you don’t come up with some new ideas and find an entirely new group of leaders, we just may have another President Clinton in 2017.
Obama isn't the problem, merely a symptom of the problem.
The problem is a depraved electorate that would have such a man as their leader.
You're the problem, Charlie.
Ah, you forget who the alternative was: Mr I won't tell you my policies or reveal my tax records. Just trust me...
And you forget what we got was the candidate officially endorsed by Hamas and Communist Party USA.
Didn't you know that, or are you just not that curious?
@demoblat, are you really that low informed? You must be with your stupid rants. The depraved rabble that voted for Obama knew and realized that any vote for Mitt would not help their own wallets. But you low informed base wing nuts keep thinking the 2% is going to make you rich like them.
You got a big surprise coming, it isn't going to be happening. And also demoblat, you can quit spewing your lies.
The Cold War was going to end when it did--with or without Ronald Reagan.
It's a true measure of how stupid we have become as a people that we would allow a man with no record of meaningful accomplishment in his life such as this one into office and then reelect him after an abysmal first term record.
Yes, we deserve a retard like this one. We are a nation of retarded narcissists, being led by a retarded narcissist.
He has a record of 4 years as US President. Looks pretty good on his CV
Weakest recovery since the end of WWII and 2nd weakest recovery in the past century.
Yeah, looks pretty good on his CV. Only to a retard like you.
A sack of rocks could have done better. The norm after a very deep recession is a rocket recovery, even after a financial market meltdown.
Man is a disaster.
Four years of total failure with another four more of even an more disastrous reign. Thank God, he only gets 2 terms which means it'll take decades to recover from his lack of fiscal incompetence and too much spreading the wealth.
Don't you Obama haters feel bad that no one cares what you say? You were all on here (along with the paid GOP posters) before the election,
But Romney STILL got trampled.
You'll have 4 years to eat your words. At the end, when you're in the food riots, that's all you will have to eat.
By the way, how's that lighter paycheck doing? Yeah, Obama made sure the middle class didn't get their taxes raised, now didn't he.
Oh, I guess you must be sitting home watching cartoons all day & clipping food stamps. That's the only way you could still think Obama is a star.
Listen up, zeke. The man is a disaster. And the disaster will grow worse with every day he's in the presidency. He's a cancer on the USA, and it won't likely survive.
No matter what Obama does, it will seem like genius next to what Romney would have done. He would have continued to siphon money off for his rich friends and continued to leave the US begging for funds.
We dodged a bullet with that one. Thank goodness Americans didn't fall for that charlatan.
If you think Obama is a disaster, you have blinders on. Stock Market at record highs, unemployment getting better every day, women/minorities/gays being allowed their place in society, two wars ending, etc. etc, etc.
Doesn't seem like a disaster to me at all--huge success is more like it
Romney never failed at anything in his life & held a number of executive positions.
Obama held no executive position before the presidency and failed at his first term.
No other objective interpretation of his record is possible.
Bush also held a number of executive positions...
Failed at his first term? Getting us out of a deep recession is success enough for me, thank you.
Now we can say that Romney failed at becoming President. Thank goodness for that. It's not that Romney is a bad person. He had to trumpet the GOP line to get the nomination and today's GOP is just a bunch of lunatics.
Weakest recovery in post-war history managed only by a quadrupling of the feds balance sheet.
Printed money makes everything look good... for a while. Then you have a horrible problem.
The porkulus only yielded 93 cents in GDP for every buck added to the national debt.
All in all, not a very good record.
Congratulations, Mr President. America made the correct choice once again. So proud of America today!
You must be on welfare and retarded.
God help you. You can't help yourself.
Lame Duck Presidency ... oh no.
It is a good time to talk about his goals for his second term. Based on the bad cards he was handed at the beginning of his first term and the obstructionist Congress which he had to persevere throughout his first term, here is a starting list of goals I feel he can and must achieve if he wants to leave a positive legacy.
1. Balance Budget ... Get the fiscal matters under control by working to a balance budget in his 4th year of his term. To achieve this goal his must revisit his healthcare plan and optimize it to remove unforeseen hidden demons ... it must be taken as a living doctrine and not a one shot deal that solves everything ... no such beast exist in politics.
(If he can achieve this the credit rating will be restored, so no need to list it separately)
2. Counter-Terrorism ... Remove all troops from Iraq and Afghanistan ... in the transition he must establish, under the leadership of the US, a robust global counter-terrorism treaty with as many nations as politically possible. Set it up in such a way that defiant nations would see it as a threat and maybe put pressure on them to comply as well.
3. Illegal Immigrants ... He must tackle the illegal (undocumented) immigrants issue ... if they are what most people think they are, cheap labor who are keeping the price of services and food down, then classify them as such ... this can be done by issuing a termed, guest worker visas ... this will enable the government to both tax their earnings and monitor the money flow ... the worst of the threats that illegal immigrants pose is reinforcing an already damaging underground economy.
4. Energy ... This need not be complicated if the government starts working to an agreed priority list ... a list that positions all the available energies according price per watt for end use, oil, gas, coal, solar, wind, geothermal, and nuclear ... there are a lot of improvement that can be done within this list, like smart grid, more domestic oil drilling, carbon dioxide containment technologies, better wind mill technologies, better solar strategy (maybe it is best to collect the radiation in space (GEO) and transmit down in such a way as to not damage the ozone layer), tighten the emission levels of automotive manufacturers even more to sustain the drive for better and widespread use of hybrids and electric cars.
(Nuclear is not the answer, I believe it is Pandora's box that will keep unleashing her demons now again, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Fukushima Daiichi, and the hundreds, if not thousands, of unreported incidents in the existing nuclear power plants ... This is one field I think NASA can play an important role, find a method to keep track of the harmful radiations levels, concentrations of the various isotopes produced by human activities, in the atmosphere and the sources that put them there (this real time tracking should be made available to the public much like the daily weather reports)
5. Park Air Force One in the garage for the second term ... roll up your sleeves and redefine a lame duck Presidency from a do nothing term to a maximum output, full steam ahead, strategy.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Maybe you have a different list and/or better strategies ... rearrange and/or add on to the list.
I think Obama should go on vacation for 4 years. He does less harm that way & overall it's less costly than having the man in Washington doing damage.
What the heck.....
He ignored his oath the first time. May as well ignore it again.
Like Reagan?
This SOB could not hold a candle to Reagan. Reagan was the last of the American Statesman that we could call our own. Period. There have been no others. Period. Reagan put the fear of God into the rest of the world. Those days are over. Lack of true Leadership is a pandemic. Period.
It sickens me that there is any relationship drawn between the greatest president in recent history to this Lying SOB Traitor Obama. Obama doent' think of himself as president but more a Dictator. If he doesn't get his way he just decree's it by executive order.
Therre is no reason for a second term President to have an inauguration Party. Not even Reagan shold have had one. A simple swearing in wuld better serve the people. the cost is fafr too much. there are many people struggling and to waste money on this Party is far too insulting.
Hopefully John Roberts doesn't screw up the oath again........
This fool Obama can't stand on his own merits , he has to be compared to another great American Lincoln he's not Regan he's not king he's not , what he is what he does , nothing Obama has done nothing but harm this nation .When this next term is over the people of this country will despise anyone with the word democrat behind there name .
The one and only swearing in should have been yesterday, including any celebrations. What is the issue with a Sunday inauguration?
Stop trying to compare Reagan and Obama. Ronald Reagan was great man and President. Obama is the anit-Reagan.
Common Man...
It's evident that you have no idea of Reagan as a man. He's lucky he wasn't impeached between Iran Contra, his military support of brutal human rights violators like El Salvador and Nicaragua in violation of US law. His no-response to Marines killed in Lebabon, his unnecessary invasion of Grenada for political purposes.
Try reading something...
First of all Obama has absolutely nothing in common with Reagen with the exception of this inauguration. Here is one of our problems with this administration, though all presidents have a deficit, Obama's has be by far more and he got the majority of his votes from those he promised more entitlements. How in the world did SS become an entitlement, Just another thing wrong none of the assistant programs should be titled entitlement because what we are entitled to is get an honest job, do an honest days work and take some pride in ourselves instead of thinking anyone owes us anything, Shoot even our parents owe us nothing after we are raised, why should the government. I would love to see the people of this country once again have the pride our founding fathers had.
Bev seriously, are saying that SS is a gift? Look up the word entitlement and then give us some level of a cogent argument.
And you're right, Reagan was more of a criminal... Half of the voters turned out for both of his elections and he got 27% and 29% of that respectively. What that should tell you is that the country wasn't too excited about its choices during those years. And the media called them landslide victories... Hardly.
Bloated ego and pandering to a segment of society that supports the president,plus a bunch of TV exposure. This is a show, nothing more
Unlike Reagan, President Obama won't bust unions. That's Right.
Like reagan, from one end of the drama to the other, this country will face even MORE crap! This 2-party system has failier PROVEN way too many times!! The GAP between it all is SO wide now that the middle WORKING class can't SEE either side!!! Just like the (Extremly Dark) picture by the Washington Monument speaks for itself: "Only 5 people missed WORK" and the ENTIRE CROWD next to the President REFUSES to WORK!!!!
He is neigher like Reagan or King and stop trying to link them with your pathetic stories.
Obama the commie that thinks we are all stupid and proves it by paying off half the country and robbing the other half.
Tom, if he read your post he'd certainly have doubts about your intellect.
Do you even know what a "commie" is?
Chip,
First Obama cannot be a commie. Reason for that is you a holes have branded him a Muslim. No Muslim is a commie. So your excretment you spew is just that, excretment. No wonder people can smell you a block away.