One thing I have heard over and over these past two months from friends and strangers alike is how pleased they are with the election results. Once again Barack Obama will take the oath of office and remain President of the United States. And once again the bible used by Abraham Lincoln will be used on the day of the public ceremony. There is so much to be proud of in this nation, and rejoice in.
Chief Justice Roger B. Taney administered the oath of office to Abraham Lincoln using the Bible of a court clerk.
President Obama says he never compares himself to Abraham Lincoln, but he’ll be sworn in again with President Lincoln’s Bible at his inauguration on Jan. 21.
The Presidential Inaugural Committee said Thursday that Mr. Obama will actually use two Bibles at the ceremony at the U.S. Capitol — the other Bible once used by Martin Luther King Jr.
“President Obama is honored to use these Bibles at the swearing-in ceremonies,” said Steve Kerrigan, president and CEO of the inaugural committee. “On the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, this historic moment is a reflection of the extraordinary progress we’ve made as a nation.”
Asked during the “fiscal cliff” negotiations if it was his “Lincoln moment” to work out a compromise, Mr. Obama said he doesn’t compare himself to Lincoln. But there are numerous examples during his presidency of Mr. Obama evoking imagery of Lincoln.
The Lincoln Bible, part of the collection of the Library of Congress, was used at the swearing-in of Lincoln in 1861.
Mr. Obama also used it at his first inauguration in 2009.
The King Bible is known as the “traveling Bible” of the late civil-rights leader.
Mr. Obama actually will use a third Bible, belonging to the family of his in-laws, the Robinsons, for his official swearing-in on Jan. 20. That ceremony will take place in private because the constitutionally mandated date for the inauguration falls on a Sunday, when public institutions are closed.
The Robinson family Bible was a gift from the first lady’s Michelle Obama’s father, Fraser Robinson III, to his mother, LaVaughn Delores Robinson, on Mother’s Day in 1958. Mrs. Robinson was the first African-American woman manager of a Moody Bible Institute’s bookstore, and she used the Bible regularly.
CAFFEINATED POLITICS 
America’s love affair with religion is disturbing.
Why is a bible used at all? How ’bout having a hand on the U.S. Constitution. That is the document a president is swearing to preserve, protect and defend.
Indeed Mark, it would be more logical but I guess the US just can’t separate church and state.