Passive-aggressiveness, Freudian slip up's

To me it looked life a face-off between two former enemies. Initially, when things didn’t go smoothly during the oath of office, it looked like it was Mr. Obama who couldn’t keep up with Chief Justice Roberts, which, of course, surprised me. For a second I even thought that like John Paul Stevens, associate justice of the Supreme Court did when he swore in Vice President Biden, Mr. Roberts too should have split up the longer sentences. Ultimately the oath of office ended on "faithfully." Of course, I didn’t know the exact wording in the Constitution, but grammatically, it could go either way, though "faithfully" before "execute" sounded more elegant after having been exposed to this order since moving to the U.S.

Anyway, after things were sorted out, the president was sworn in, and later I learned that Justice Roberts known as a textualist made the mistake of putting "faithfully" in the wrong place, even in terms of what the Constitution dictates, this was my gut reaction: damn it, the guy wanted to trip up the president. Apparently, he also said "President to the United States" instead of "President of the United States." Oh, yes, one more thing. He also said, "So help you, God," which of course, Mr. Obama thoughtfully changed to "So help me God."

To be filed under passive-aggressiveness, I can see why Mr. Roberts’s perceived goof-up might have been intended to "test" Mr. Obama. Going beyond Republican versus Democrat pettiness, Mr. Roberts would never forgive Senator Obama for voting against him for Chief Justice, especially in light of the fact Mr. Obama is president now, which Mr. Roberts not in a million years could become.

One thing I have noticed about people who succeed beyond anyone’s wildest dreams (e.g. Mr. Obama) is they have an edge over those who can go only so far, especially those whose rise to power has a lot to do with favoritism (e.g Mr. Roberts?) in terms of their humanity. The more I observe Mr. Obama the more I see his humanity stand out the most about him. For instance, had he been in Mr. Roberts's shoes he would have never tried to trip up even his enemies.

I know that my trip up theory (though some people did label Roberts's slip up Freudian) about Mr. Roberts can never be proven, but I have seen passive-aggressive people indulge in more than their share of petty acts, which possibly Mr. Roberts too indulged in. Mr. Obama’s way of getting at the enemy, perhaps, would be to go along with the mistake, let others point it out so he himself comes across as sterling silver. I recognize this sort of a person too quite easily because I’m married to one!

Ciao!
Ro.