With only his family beside him, President Barack Hussein Obama was sworn into office in the White House before noon on Sunday in advance of Monday’s public pomp, starting a second term with a bitterly divided government at home and persistent threats abroad that inhibit his effort to redefine America’s use of power around the world.

It was a brief and intimate moment in the White House, made necessary by a quirk of the constitutional calendar but setting the tone for an inauguration on Monday that will be less of a spectacle than four years ago, when the nation’s first black president embodied hope and change for most Americans at a time of economic crisis and war.

 

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After the President took his oath for the second term, he hugged his family and his younger daughter, Sasha, reportedly told him, "You didn't mess up!"