So help me Rick Warren

The key question is not "Does it matter that Rick Warren will give the inaugural invocation ?"¹ but "Does it matter that a supposedly model democracy performs inaugurations with invocations, swearings on the Bible, and the final words 'so help me God' ?"

I don't consider myself an atheist and I understand the value of traditions, but these symbols are a clear statement against the separation of church and state at the most critical moment : when the power is handed to the very person who will defend the U.S. Constitution.

I know I'm repeating myself ("Universal Declaration of Independence From Fundamentalism"), but even religious Spain understood that this century and moreover this post-9/11 World demanded clear messages from democracies. Zapatero swore with his right hand on the Spanish Constitution.

Barack Obama can't afford this now, and his poor choice of Rick Warren proves to those who doubted that he won't ignite any divisive war during his mandate.

But I have this dream : President Obama casually swearing on the U.S. Constitution for his second term.

In doing so, Barack Hussein Obama will also defuse many mines for successors who are bound to break, sooner or later, that other glass ceiling.

1 - see today's Politico Arena.