Tuesday 20 January 2009

Who succeeded George W Bush as US President?

That may seem an odd question to ask given that many of us have just watched Barack Obama being sworn into office as the 44th President of the USA.

However, the 20th amendment to the US constitution specifically says that the term of office of a President ends at noon on January 20.

Obama didn't actually take the oath of office until 12.03.

I would therefore contend that the person who succeeded George W Bush as President was in fact Acting President Joe Biden - for a whole three minutes!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Being immune to the hysteria (I was busy wondering whether the potato was going to be our official currency this time next week), I didn't watch the canonization so correct me on the details here...

Was Biden sworn in before Obama? If not, didn't that make Nancy Pelosi leader for the three minutes?

Bernard Salmon said...

Yes, Biden was sworn in at 11.57 ET, so he was also George W Bush's vice-president for three minutes.

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