The Flubbing of Lines

Okay, fine. Chief Justice Roberts had 35 words to speak on Tuesday, and he got them wrong. It happens. Here's a story:

I was doing my first show as a college freshman, Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew. I only had a small part, but it was a Mainstage show so I'd landed a big show right off the bat. Great joy to be there, and doing Shakespeare, and so forth. My character, the Pedant, was there for a bit of silliness about pretending to be Lucentio's father, etc., etc. Secondary-plotline stuff. And there was a moment when I had a long, blathering speech to deliver.

One night, I was in full blather. And the guy playing Baptista was in the moment so he did something slightly different from our other performances: he interjected a sound, just a little sound, as if the character was trying to interrupt but couldn't. That's all, not even a full word, just a little sound.

I stopped cold. Turned to him and said the decidedly unShakespearian "Huh?" Then realized what he'd done, turned back in order to resume my speech, and discovered in that moment that my brain had just lost the entire English language.

I made a succession of little strangling noises until the guy playing Baptista (hi, Jim Williams) stepped in with the next part of the scene and rescued me. Huge embarrassment yadda yadda, learning experience yadda yadda, ain't live theatre grand yadda, yadda and yadda.

This of course is exactly what happened to Mr. Roberts. Watch the tape linked above. Barack Obama thought the first phrase would simply be his name, so he started to speak, but Roberts wanted to add "do solemnly swear" to that first phrase. Obama's accidental interruption did to Mr. Roberts exactly what Jim William's interruption did to me, except that Roberts handled it better. He at least didn't forget an entire language, he just had a little wires-crossing, words-tangling adventure, right there with the entire damned world staring as his brain went blank during a moment of profound historical import.

All of which simply proves that history has a sense of humor. (Although you can see in Michelle Obama's face a strangled expression that says "This moment? You pick this moment to fuck up? This moment we've all waited for for centures? Aaaack!")

Naturally, the wombats on Fox News breathlessly asked "Is Barack Obama really president?!?!" Oh, shut up.