''I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.

This is the oath military people take:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that i will support and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

The sole civilian exception, is the oath administered to the person about to become President of the United States. That oath, which required in the Constitution, is:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) 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."

Starting Monday the e-mail version of Mullings will come as an HTML document instead of a text document. This should be easier to read and the links to sponsors and to the Secret Decoder Ring will be easier to manipulate.

Long-time readers may remember that we tried this as a test about 18 months ago, but so many people had e-mail clients which couldn't handle HTML, that I quickly went back to the text-only version.

Since that time nearly all e-mail readers have this capability so the column will come to you as an HTML document by default.

If, for some reason, you want to go back to the text version, you will be able to do that by clicking on the link at the bottom of the column and making the change yourself.

I hope you enjoy this enhancement.

Rich

Mullfoto of the Day

They wanted to charge me 200 bucks just to stand on the sidewalk and take this picture.

Al Sharpton responds to President Bush's State of the Union address before a crush of reporters at his sold-out, standing-room-only news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.

(AP Photo/ Charles Dharapak) ____________________________________________________________________________________