The First Day

There's no doubt that President Obama knows how to orchestrate the media! The minutiae of his first day in office has been carefully drip fed to the hungry media hordes, and there is little we don't appear to know. There is substance there as well. His first pronouncements as President, just announced to the press corps, have been to freeze senior White House pay, insist on a new ethics standards, limit the access of lobbyists and commit to greater transparency and feredom of information. These are no small deals in the new administration's determination to be seen as a fresh start, one that can be trusted by the people.

Obama signed the first executive orders in front of the press, and his affable Vice-President then had to administer the oath of office to the new senior staffers. Joe Biden usually manages to make a slip up or two, and here he seemed to be casting a sly dig at the Chief Justice when he asked for a copy of the oath, saying "I don't have Justice Roberts' memory". The Chief Justice, of course, misquoted the presidential oath of office yesterday when administering it to Obama.