Obama's Chief Speechwriter, 27, Works on Inaugural Address While Making His Own Transition | Hacker News Reader

Obama's Chief Speechwriter, 27, Works on Inaugural Address While Making His Own Transition

washingtonpost.com

65 pointskalvin46 comments

Good article (though a tad gushy). I've been waiting to find out more about Favreau for a while. It's an extraordinary story, and I agree with the other commenters that it says a lot about Obama too.

One thing leapt out at me that has nothing to do with speechwriting. A lot of research has been done in the past decade or so on the prolongation of adolescence. It's a category of life that didn't use to exist (people went from childhood straight to adulthood), arose in the form of "teenager" and has been extending ever since. The last thing I read on this said it now extends to the late 20s.

Well, this article is a striking example of that phenomenon. The author takes it for granted that a 27 year old would naturally live an adolescent life. It's not just that Favreau became a presidential speechwriter at 27 (though of course that's an amazing achievement by any standard) - it's remarkable that he's doing anything other than goofing around with friends and playing video games. Yet not so long ago, the opposite was the case: it would have been remarkable if a 27 year old were not well along the path of job, marriage, and kids.

I'm not commenting on whether this is good or bad, but it's a major social phenomenon.

"Obama edits and rewrites portions himself -- he is the better writer, Favreau insists -- and they usually work through final revisions together."

I wonder if the same can be said of other presidents. Some of the classical speeches from the early 20th century are really incredible. I wonder who really wrote them.

Obama's acceptance speech was very powerful, too. One of the most powerful speeches I have seen in a while. Comparatively, McCain's speeches seemed to lack a varying style. They felt stale, and even his concession speech was kind of boring.

If anything, this article really solidifies my feeling that Obama is a smart guy.

No Presidents in recent memory at least. From what I gather, the last one that was noted as such was Grant. Let's hope for the sake of our nation that Obama's similarities to him end with the pen.

Well, there's one other striking similarity: they were/are both under 50 upon inauguration. Obama is 47; Grant was 42.

that's not striking that just arbitrary, Bill Clinton was younger than Obama

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_President...

I didn't mean to imply they were the only two under-50 presidents; simply that they were part of a small set, most of which share certain traits, creative ability being one. To wit, Obama's speeches, Grant's Memoirs, and Clinton's musical talent.

Is Clinton actually a talented musician? I thought he just knew how to play some.

Didn't Lincoln write the Gettysburg Address himself? Legend has it he wrote it on the train ride to the Battlefield, though I'm not sure if that's true.

Lincoln was before Grant, obviously, but yes, that is the story. I'm not sure if it's apocryphal or what, but I believe it to be true.

I guess it depends on the relative 'recent memory' ;) I was born in '75 and remember the Reagan era well. Whether you liked him or not - he impressively wrote nearly all his own speeches, at least until his later White House years. He spent many years employed as a spokesman for GE and typically wrote all of his speeches by hand on yellow legal pads.

An interesting sidenote - during his first campaigns, his opponents tried to damage him by saying all he knew how to do was make prepared speeches since he was a clueless actor from Hollywood. To combat that impression, he started making his appearances almost entirely Q&A so audiences could see he had his stuff down and could handle any questions placed to him.

Hence Reagan's 'presidential nickname' the 'Great Communicator'.

Fortunately Obama has 'Great Communicator' skills as well - it's certainly a lot more fun to have a president that can speak well ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan

Eisenhower wrote most of his own stuff, and before that he wrote most of John D MacArthur's speeches.

Bush writes a lot of his own material as well. The following excerpts show Bush speaking in his own authorial voice. Commanding. Magisterial. Lincolnesque.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ux3DKxxFoM

I hate to relate it to startups, really, but I couldn't help but think it sounds so much like a startup that just got acquired. I hope the Whitehouse doesn't do what big companies do to little startups so often. Hopefully the fact that they're not being taken in so much as taking over means it won't be so demotivating. Obama can sign an executive order allowing jeans in the Oval Office, right?

There's a difference. When a small company gets acquired by IBM, the IBM people stay in charge. The little fish gets swallowed.

Here, the startup is suddenly in charge of the behemoth. So there's no real reason to assume everything is going to change for the worse.

You underestimate institutional momentum. Try watching 'Yes, Minister', which is a far-too-believable take on how the bureaucrats keep politicians in line.

Just ran across this blog entry from the marvelous James Fallows: Jon Favreau is not the youngest chief presidential speechwriter!

http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/12/i_am_sh...

(I almost submitted this to HN but it's not really worth a post of its own, so I'll put it here.)

You know its amazing this guy is where he is at such an early age - he is certainly talented. It also speaks volumes about Obama that he recognized talent and obviously knows how to nurture it. I am looking forward to the inaugural address.

To be fair, Favreau has also likened the job to being Ted Williams' hitting coach. That's not to say he isn't talented. Just that he's already working with someone so gifted it may not matter who his coaches are so long as they know when to get out of the way.

You raise a good point. Obama probably likes having someone so young and inexperienced writing his speeches. There's no ego to deal with. If Obama's speechwriter thought he was a better writer than Obama, there'd be problems.

Makes a lot more sense now, actually.

Jon was a friend of a friend when I was in college. Very sharp guy. He was working in Washington for another senator a couple years ago. That is where he met Obama.

Jon also worked on the Deval Patrick campaign for governor in Massachusetts, too. Jon wrote his speeches, too.

Didn't he also write Swingers? Barack is so money, and he doesn't even know it.

Different Jon Favreau

Glad someone at least caught the reference. Why am I not surprised it was you?

How long do you wait to call your babies?

must... resist... urge... to... quote...

Come on, this is funny.

HN can be better than funny.

It can be both at the same time.

I'm gonna ask you a simple question and I want you to listen to me: who's the big winner here tonight at the election? Huh? Obama, that's who. Obama's the big winner. Obama wins.

But, doesn't he know that Saccharine in large quantities causes cancer?

Seriously, though, nothing that Obama's said during the campaign has been remotely memorable to me, though I did stop listening to all his speeches as their numbers accumulated. Were any as memorable as, say, Reagan's "A Time to Choose"? Were any quotable? I'm sure they're on youtube, and I would be willing to turn off the old analytical mind for a moment to listen to a nice piece of performance art from the man, if any exists.

And not the "new day in America/ a time for change/ things haven't been going well for a lot of folks/ problems on main street" kind of pablum that I remember from the campaign.

I don't know why you're being downvoted. It's cool for the guy, but I found the speeches of Obama completely dull as well. Maybe the talent resides in writing speeches that will offend absoluetly nobody while masking the fact that they tell nothing at all, just like anything that aims to gain universal consensus. I, for one, was definitly not sensible to this tone.

The only presidential speech I really remember was Reagan's challenger speech. the "slip the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of god" line still makes me proud and sad.

However, I think Obama's "race in america" speech is quite good. No matter how his presidency turns out, I think that speech will be remembered as the moment Obama turned the tide against Clinton... The speech that, effectively, gave him the presidency.

I just wanted to remark that I am thrilled to have a writer in the White House, and someone who thinks of himself as a writer, as a craftsman, as someone who creates things for other people.

I'm thrilled to know that Obama can place so much trust and responsibility in young people's hands. Glad to see a president that can recognize true talent regardless of age.

Nothing new - Bush had very young speechwriters too: http://209.85.129.132/search?q=cache:-EuLK3eajXIJ:americasfu...

Now, I'd be fascinated to hear why speechwriters tend to be young. Because, unlike other political roles, it doesn't require decades' work building up contacts? Because younger writers are somehow fresher or more energetic?

It's certainly an odd, interesting phenomenon. But it's Washington as a whole, not just Obama.

It's my understanding that the bulk of the internal White House staffers are fairly young. Likely because of hellish working hours/conditions there.

As opposed to any other speechwriter?

I was referring to the president-elect, who describes himself as a writer in this article.

The despicable whitewashing of the BHO campaign goes on. Maybe when the newspapers are threatened with looming bankruptcy will they treat that corrupt Chicago gangster with equity (for the sake of sales). Until then, we're stuck with hagiography and cocksuckism writ on a grand strategic scale. The neocons are in firm, firm control. Expect hard-rightism in foreign policy, hard-lefism in domestic policy. Same as Bush. Nothing more disgusting than a sucker repeatedly warned.

http://timepassonline.blogspot.com/2008/12/jon-favreau-hilla...

Yes, the drunk 19-year-olds define public thought. You voted for it, bitches.

Perhaps you mistook this site for Reddit?

    -3 points by mattmaroon 35 minutes ago | link
    Didn't he also write Swingers? Barack is so money, and he doesn't even know it.
    reply

Looks like you both did tonight :-)

It was a joke about the guy's name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Favreau

Not a ranting, nonsensical political diatribe. I can't help it if people here aren't film buffs I guess.

Well, for that matter so did kalvin and the 10 people who voted for this article about politics.

The article was chiefly about writing. It's fairly apolitical really. It just happens to be about a guy who writes for the President.

There would be zero story there without Obama.

That doesn't make it political.

Perhaps the person who submitted it did. Criticize the right person.

I'm pretty sure I did. It was an article about writing, followed by some sort of syphilitic anti-Obama diatribe.

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