Early this morning at the Naval Observatory, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor became the first Hispanic-American ever to administer an oath of office, swearing in Joe Biden to his second term as vice-president. “It’s an incredible honor to have Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor swear me in,” Biden said in a statement. “I believed strongly that she would make a great Justice, and it was one of the greatest pleasures of my career to be involved in her selection to the Court.”
While the ceremony was originally scheduled to take place closer to the president’s swearing-in, due at 11:55 a.m., it seems Sotomayor had a book signing to get to in New York City. And Joe Biden is nothing if not accommodating.
Besides his wife, Jill, his children, and several Cabinet members, Biden was also joined onstage by a very, very old Bible bearing a Celtic cross that’s been in his family since 1893. Sadly, he wasn’t joined onstage by the boisterous and awkwardly jokey Joe Biden we know and love. That guy would’ve waited until he’d been sworn in before yelling “Not!” and revealing that he’d actually had his fingers crossed behind his back the whole time. (The hand on the Bible, incidentally, would prove to be a very convincing prosthetic.)
