As we’ve discussed in class, Barak Obama flubbed the oath of office during the inauguration, following the incorrect reading that Chief Justice Roberts gave (though corrected).  This raised a constitutional question of whether Barak Obama had fulfullied the constitutional requirements of becoming president and taking on the powers and responsibilities of the office of the president. 

As  this article illustrates, this question is ambigious as a matter of constitutional interpretation.  On the one hand, the Constitution explicitly states that Obama, as the winner of the Electoral College contest, assumes the presidency at 12:00 noon on Inauguration Day see here. As can be seen in the following text from the Twentieth Amendment, the constitution specifically states that the new president’s term begins when the old president’s term ends:

The terms of the President and the Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin.

However, the Oath of Office is set out explicitly in  Article II:

Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:–”I do solemnly swear (or affirm) 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.”

Which tends to suggest that unless President Elect Obama repeated the above exactly, he could not “enter on the execution of his office.” His faulty execution of the oath may have barred Obama from entering on the aforementioned “execution” of the office of the president, and thus may have rendered any official Obama acts following null and void from a constitutional perspective, given a judicial challenge.

UPDATE:  Good news.  President Obama has retaken the oath of office.  Constitutional Crisis averted!!!