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- Title
The Tale of Two Oaths: Inaugural Gaffes, Technical Memories, and Presidential Investiture.
- Authors
Dunn, ThomasR.
- Abstract
This essay examines memory strategies of the Obama Administration in the days immediately after the President's gaffe-laden 2009 oath of office. Inaugurals are significant legal and symbolic moments in American memory. However, Obama's gaffe troubled the legal and symbolic memories of the first oath, forcing Obama to retake the oath a second time. In an attempt to modify these rhetorical challenges, I argue the Obama administration sought to minimize the second oath by refiguring it as a technical memory that concerned only a narrow group of legal experts. In doing so, the administration was able to preserve the symbolic power of the first inaugural oath, while muting questions of presidential investiture.
- Subjects
UNITED States; OBAMA, Barack, 1961-; PRESIDENTS of the United States; POLITICAL leadership; PUBLIC administration; FAUX pas; INVESTITURE
- Publication
Southern Communication Journal, 2014, Vol 79, Issue 5, p427
- ISSN
1041-794X
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1080/1041794X.2014.933869