Author Archives: Tin Man

The Oath

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Oh, well — I guess they won’t be able to use the oath-taking in a future historical documentary accompanied by swelling musical chords.

ROBERTS: I, Barack Hussein Obama…
OBAMA: I, Barack…
ROBERTS: … do solemnly swear…
OBAMA: I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear…
ROBERTS: … that I will execute the office of president to the United States faithfully…
OBAMA: … that I will execute…
ROBERTS: … faithfully the office of president of the United States…
OBAMA: … the office of president of the United States faithfully…

Hopefully there’ll be a do-over in four years.

Whitehouse.gov

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One thing I am very curious about: the website for the Obama White House.

The White House’s official website, Whitehouse.gov, was launched in October 1994 under the Clinton administration. It looked like this. Over the years it changed to this, then this, then this; here is how it looked at the end of the Clinton presidency.

Around noon on January 20, 2001, the first Whitehouse.gov transition occurred. The Bush administration’s first website looked like this — pretty crappy, even for 2001. Here are a couple of articles about it. Eventually it improved.

But today, at noon or sometime thereafter, the keys to the website will pass the new administration. Will it have a blog? A Flickr feed? A YouTube channel? Some secret new technology invented by Google that will be introduced to the world today?

We’ll soon find out.