Obama Appoints White House Speechwriting and Intergovernmental Affairs Heads

[ProSense]

Cast of Characters

Obama Appoints White House Speechwriting and Intergovernmental Affairs Heads

By Michael A. Fletcher

President-elect Barack Obama continued rounding out his White House staff today, naming Jonathan Favreau director of speechwriting and Cecilia Munoz director of intergovernmental affairs.

Favreau has worked for Obama since 2005, when he joined the president-elect's Senate office as a speechwriter. He later served as director of speechwriting during the presidential campaign, building on his role as deputy director of speechwritng for the 2004 campaign of Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). At the White House, Favreau will oversee a team of writers who carefully craft words for the president's many public appearances.

Munoz, meanwhile, will oversee the White House office responsible for relations between the administration and state and local governments. The 2000 MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" winner is a senior vice president at the National Council of La Raza, a leading Hispanic civil rights group. There, she has spearheaded many of the organization's immigration initiatives. Currently, she is in charge of the group's entire advocacy and legislative agenda.

"We're continuing to build a White House team that can rise to the challenges facing this country -- and I couldn't be more excited to announce Jon and Cecilia," Obama said. "I'm confident that at a critical time in our history, this White House will restore openness and accountability to our executive branch and help to put government back in the hands of the people it serves."

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. Obama should also appoint Palin as speechwriter - hear me out, this makes sense....

Then he can give every speech twice - once in the regular, intelligent way; and the second he can have Palin rewrite into her form of gobbledygook since, apparently, at least half the country still prefers indecipherable and randomly strung together incoherent gobbledygook that doesn't actually offer any real information but sure feels like it does.

That's how Obama can win over the Republicans, too.

[rug]

5. This is cheaper.

http://www.rinkworks.com/dialect/

Enter text and select "Moron".

[LittleApple81]

2. Favreau is a little kid! Born in 1981! Here is a little info about him:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/fashion/20speechwriter.html


What Would Obama Say?
By ASHLEY PARKER
Published: January 20, 2008



Mr. Favreau, the campaign’s 26-year-old head speechwriter, found himself in the hotel lounge with less than three hours to revise what was to have been a victory speech. What made it particularly strange was that his words were being challenged. Mrs. Clinton had helped turn her campaign around by discounting Mr. Obama’s elegant oratory, saying, “You campaign in poetry, but you govern in prose.”

“To be honest,” Mr. Favreau said, “the first time I really stopped to think about how it felt was when he started giving the speech. I looked around at the senior staff, and they were all smiling. And I looked around the room and thought, ‘This is going to be O.K.’ ”

Mr. Favreau, or Favs, as everyone calls him, looks every bit his age, with a baby face and closely shorn stubble. And he leads a team of two other young speechwriters: 26-year-old Adam Frankel, who worked with John F. Kennedy’s adviser and speechwriter Theodore C. Sorensen on his memoirs, and Ben Rhodes, who, at 30, calls himself the “elder statesman” of the group and who helped write the Iraq Study Group report as an assistant to Lee H. Hamilton.

[Jennicut]

4. 1981! He is a youngin. I was born in '75.

[ProSense]

6. Yeah, he's impressive. n/t

[gblady]

3. this is great....

totally no surprise here....
remember reading about this youngster during the campaign...
he and Barack do so well together...

GOBAMA!:applause:

[FrenchieCat]

7. But where is the CHANGE?

That's what I want to know? :mad: :sarcasm:

[Enrique]

9. what's that picture from?

it looks like he's in a comedy club.

[Starry Messenger]

8. kick. n/t