You are correct. He did not have to take the oath in order to be President. Obama was President officially at 12PM Jan 20, 2009.

As mentioned above, oath or no oath he was the President at noon! You could see the look on Roberts face, he was embarrassed and Obama was surprised he screwed it up. NO conspiracy here, just a nervous public appearance.

I didn't vote for Obama! They did the "do over" just to keep the tin foil hat wearing conspirisy theorisist from yelling his presidency was illigetiment. It won't stop them, but it might throw up a road block in their way, and slow them down.
People, get over itl. Obama is your president! If you don't like it, tough!!
All you can do is watch for illegal acts and hope you can catch them. If you do, all you can do is call your congressmen or senators and complain.

Originally posted by kettlebellysmith
I didn't vote for Obama! They did the "do over" just to keep the tin foil hat wearing conspirisy theorisist from yelling his presidency was illigetiment. It won't stop them, but it might throw up a road block in their way, and slow them down.
People, get over itl. Obama is your president! If you don't like it, tough!!
All you can do is watch for illegal acts and hope you can catch them. If you do, all you can do is call your congressmen or senators and complain.

Haha, if the do-over was to appease the conspiracy theorists... they did not do a good job completely.

The do-over had no bible present.... not that it means anything to me, but the fact remains when the do-over was given, there was no bible used.

I guess you can't please everyone.

Originally posted by kettlebellysmith
People, get over itl. Obama is your president! If you don't like it, tough!!

I don't know if this was directed at me but for the record I've accepted Obama as my President, which means I will not boo him should he ever do something I don't agree with.
I read something somewhere not too long ago that stated the President MUST be sworn in by noon.
For a second it almost sounded as if he must be sworn or the whole thing is nullified at 12:01.
But after reading the 20th Amendment I know high noon is the time the outgoing Prez goes riding off into the sunset.
So maybe the "must be sworn in by noon" is so that the country is not left without a President.
Which is why I pose the questtion in this thread.

Or better yet, if he doesn't need to be sworn in to be Prez, then all the Inauguration Day hoopla was for nothing, which means 2 Million people went to DC for nothing.

Then it turned out to be nothin' but a scam pulled on the disenfranchized.

Funny that Obama felt the need to re-state the oath, citing "an abundance of caution", but did not feel the same need to re-issue and re-sign the executive orders he had signed.

Originally posted by Alxandro
Or better yet, if he doesn't need to be sworn in to be Prez, then all the Inauguration Day hoopla was for nothing, which means 2 Million people went to DC for nothing.

Well the people went to DC to celebrate and witness a formality. The inauguration is really nothing more than that, a celebration, formality and tradition.

But from my interpretation of the Constitution it looks like a President has to take the oath before exercising his executive powers, without it, even though he would be the President, he couldn't discharge his executive duties.

Originally posted by jsobecky
Funny that Obama felt the need to re-state the oath, citing "an abundance of caution", but did not feel the same need to re-issue and re-sign the executive orders he had signed.

Press Secretary Gibbs is on right now saying that the Office of Legal Counsel didn't feel he had to re-sign the orders, but advised the President to re-take the oath.