On Tuesday, January 20th 2009, in front of a crowd of over one million and assisted by Samuel L. Jackson, Oprah Winfrey, and Beyoncé Knowles, Barack Obama made the following pledge:

“I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

We do not know what sort of surroundings, how big an audience, or whether any celebrities were in attendance when Edward Snowden, on beginning his work for National Security Agency contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, swore two oaths: “The first oath," said Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, "was to keep secret the classified materials to which heSnowden, not Barack Obama, who is being branded a ‘traitor’ by all sides.

John Phelan is a Contributing Editor for The Commentator and a Fellow at the Cobden Centre. He has also written for City AM and Conservative Home and he blogs at Manchester Liberal. Follow him on Twitter @TheBoyPhelan