Smile at the Small Stuff

At the preeminent moment, when Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts uttered the familiar words of the oath of office, President Barack H.Obama had the presence of mind to pause and allow the Chief Justice to correct the mistake he just made. When he failed to get it right the second time, the new president just repeated the Chief Justice's error and went on with the ceremony. NPR had the best line about this simple but glaring gaffe: How many Harvard Law Review editors does it take to screw up the oath of office? The answer is two. Both President Obama and Justice Roberts served as editors of the law review.

The otherwise near perfect spectacle of the peaceful transfer of power, in the presence of Washington's largest crowd ever, sends the sort of message we need. That there was a glaring but ultimately meaningless ceremonial error is refreshing. We will gladly accept--even acknowledge and celebrate--the fact that even these two high achievers, the heads of two out of three co-equal branches of government, can make mistakes. As for the third branch, I'm sure Congress will screw something up, too; its members seem to be pretty good at it!

My hope and prayer is that the mistakes of the future--and there will be mistakes--stay on a small scale. And because they may be more meaningful than a misplaced adverb, we, the people, need to keep our focus on demanding the best and raising our voices when it looks like the sort of large scale errors of the last eight years are about to be made. Our vigilance will serve our leaders well and is consistent with the kind of government President Obama says he wants to lead.