Posted by
Wes Fowler on Thursday, January 24, 2008 2:31:36 PM
Last week, the New York Times ran a
campaign advertisement human interest story profiling the speechwriter for Barack Obama:
His name is
Jon Favreau . He is 26 years old and a former member of the John Kerry 2004 campaign. (Well, there are 2 strikes against him already.) If you've noticed that there are repetitive catch phrases ("change") and not a lot of specific details or campaign promises in Obama's speeches, now you know why.
Jon heads a team of 3 speech writers. The other two writers on the team are Adam Frankel (also 26 ) and Ben Rhodes (30). Frankel has helped an advisor to JFK write his memoirs, and Rhodes helped write the Iraq Study Group Report.
Favreau worked on the national team of the Kerry campaign right after he graduated from college. He eventually became a writer for Kerry. When he saw Obama's speech for the 2004 Convention, he asked Obama to delete a phrase from the speech. The phrase was already a part of Kerry's convention speech.
The NYT article describes Obama's Kennedy-esque poise and stature. It says he seemed to channel JFK when he spoke. That it may be due to his charisma, not the words he spoke. A historian from Brown University , Ted Widmer, notes that Obama's speeches were good for the early part of the campaign, but now he needs to suggest some concrete proposals.
Why would Obama pick 3 young whipper snappers for his speech writing team??? I would think more experienced advisors would at least oversee this team. The fact that Favreau wrote for the campaign that lost the last election should be a warning sign for Obama.
The phrase "baby faced" is used to describe Favreau at least 3 times in this small article. The article also mentioned that he has no girlfriend. A quick google search of his name reveals remarks by many squealing liberal females discussing his good looks. A glance at his photo in the article tells me they would probably be wasting their time.