Obama takes public oath of office, sets out bold agenda for Term 2

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama took the oath of office for the second time in as many days on Monday, this time before as many as 800,000 jubilant Americans who cheered as he urged Americans to come together and uphold cherished U.S. principles of justice and equality.

Obama’s glitzy public swearing-in at the majestic Capitol building, featuring pop star Beyonce singing the national anthem, took place on the national holiday devoted to revered civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

A transcript of earlier live is coverage below:

On Sunday, the country’s first African-American president was sworn in by John Roberts, chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, during an intimate ceremony at the White House. That’s because the U.S. Constitution requires presidents take the oath of office on Jan. 20; when it falls on a Sunday, the public festivities are held the next day.

One of Obama’s appointees to the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, administered the oath to Vice President Joe Biden on Monday as the president beamed. Roberts, who famously flubbed the oath of office in 2009, swore in Obama without any hitches this time.

Obama embraced his wife and daughters as the crowd roared its approval after he swore the oath.

He then delivered a short but spirited and substantive address that touched on his administration’s priorities and didn’t shy away from some of the most hot-button debates raging in the United States, including immigration reform, gun control, climate change and same-sex marriage.

“Our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers, and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts,” he said to an eruption of cheers and applause.

“Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law — for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.”

It was thought to be the first time any U.S. president has mentioned gay rights in an inaugural address. Obama also made mention of voter disenfranchisement, a particular problem in Florida in November for African-American voters.

“Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote,” he said.

“Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity.”

As the inaugural festivities played out on Capitol Hill, hundreds of people were gathered just down the street at the Canadian embassy to watch history unfold. The so-called tailgate party at 501 Pennsylvania Avenue, hosted by Ambassador Gary Doer, was one of the hottest tickets in the U.S. capital given its close proximity to the Capitol building.

It boasts a stunning view of the action from its sixth-floor rooftop patio.

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird and some American VIPs were among those in attendance noshing on BeaverTails, poutine, Tim Hortons coffee and Crown Royal cocktails, among other Canadian fare.

Obama begins his next four years in office amid far different circumstances than he did in 2009, when his soaring messages of hope and change dared millions of Americans to dream that their country could be the better, brighter place that King himself envisioned decades earlier.

And yet the commander-in-chief now presides over a bitterly divided U.S. Congress, although the dramatically changing face of America, in particular the growing number of Hispanic voters, helped to decisively propel him to a second victory in November.

The president’s first term kicked off as a devastating economic recession was taking hold, thwarting some of his loftiest legislative goals and compelling his administration to spend billions in efforts to ward off a full-fledged depression.

It’s also been marked by nasty partisan brawling incited largely by a Republican opposition that made no bones about its determination to put the brakes to Obama’s legislative agenda at every turn. They also vowed to deny him a second term, an ultimately fruitless mission.

There have been successes — the president managed to do what so many in the Oval Office had failed to achieve, passing a sweeping overhaul to the country’s health-care system that provided health insurance to millions of Americans. He also authorized the successful Navy SEALs raid that finally captured and killed Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaida mastermind behind 9-11.

There were failures — Obama did next to nothing on immigration reform, failed to close the Guantanamo Bay military prison as promised and was utterly unable to make deals with John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, on taxes, spending cuts, the debt ceiling and the so-called fiscal cliff.

And there were tragedies, most notably a series of horrific mass shootings — one that almost killed a Democratic congresswoman, another that left 12 dead in a Colorado movie theatre and perhaps the most heinous of all, the massacre of 20 young schoolchildren in small-town Connecticut last month.

Indeed, the carnage in Newtown, CT, at the hands of a troubled young man toting his mother’s assault rifle shook the president to his core. It’s resulted in a renewed White House push for gun control that is likely to be a hallmark of Obama’s second term.

Even as inauguration festivities played out across the U.S. capital all weekend, gun rights activists held a Gun Appreciation Day as a form of protest against Obama’s proposals to combat gun violence. Five people were injured Saturday at gun shows in three states in accidental shootings.

After four difficult years of governing, a greyer, more sombre Obama addressed the crowd of as many as 800,000 people on Monday.

In addition to gun control, the next four years will also include a major push for immigration reform from the White House. The Obama administration wants a sweeping bill that would include a path toward citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants already living stateside.

Obama will also face continuing pressure to bring the country’s US$16 billion national debt to heel. There will also be a decision in the weeks to come on the fate of TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline.

There are myriad issues confronting Obama on the international front.

Israel continues to pressure the White House to launch military action against Iran in order to stop it from building nuclear weapons. There’s also an ongoing civil war in Syria, increasingly tense U.S.-Russia relations, hostilities between Israelis and Palestinians and trade disputes with China.

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