Roberts’ irony
Re “Chief justice trips over oath of office,” Jan. 21
The presidential oath of office is written in the Constitution.
In administering this one-sentence oath Tuesday, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. made multiple errors. In addition to scrambling the sequence of words, Roberts appended the phrase “so help me God,” a phrase that is not in the Constitution.
I thought Roberts was supposed to be a strict constructionist. The Bush administration has a sorry record of torturing man and language for its purposes. It is ironic and fitting that on President Bush’s last day in office, the Constitution was misquoted by his most important appointee.
Lee D. Cranberg
Chestnut Hill, Mass.
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