The Bible upon which President Abraham Lincoln was sworn in for his first inauguration is displayed at the Library of Congress in Washington December 23, 2008. On January 20, 2009, President-elect Obama will take the oath of office using the same Bible Lincoln used.
I found two points of particular interest:
1) The interactive graphics include a discussion of the Bibles used by key presidents, and the scriptural passages upon which they laid their hands. President Dwight D. Eisenhower opened his Bibles (in 1953 and 1957) to Psalm 33:12: "Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance."
2) The discussion of Reverend Franklin Graham's decision to offer a less-inclusive prayer at the inauguration of George W. Bush in 2001:
By 2001 conservative evangelicals had become a powerful force in American politics, instrumental to electing George W. Bush to the presidency. Part of the evangelical identity, increasingly, was a pugnacious sense that they were being persecuted and should not be cowed into suppressing their faith. "I knew stating that there is no other Name by which an individual can be saved grate on some ears and prick some hearts," Franklin Graham wrote about his inaugural prayer in his book, "The Name." "However, as a minister of the gospel, I was not there to stroke the egos of men. My role was to acknowledge the all powerful One and please Him....I want to please my Father in heaven no matter the cost." The country's growing religious diversity left evangelical Protestants feeling more defensive and inclined to strut their theological stuff.
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