His Master’s Voice - Jon Favreau
Wednesday, January 21st, 2009 by Rob Brown
Few of the two billion watching President Obama’s inaugural address would have imagined that the words spoken were drafted by a man almost twenty years his junior.
Jon Favreau at 27 is the youngest ever official White House speechwriter. Not that this wordsmith is new to the task. He has been on the road with Obama for over three years often toiling over campaign speeches until 3am the night before they were delivered. These late nights were often fuelled with heavy doses of caffeine and it transpires that the first draft of Obama’s acceptance speech was crafted in a Washington branch of Starbucks.
Many have compared the president’s style to that of the late John F Kennedy but ‘Fav’ as he is known claims to have spent more time studying the words of his brother Bobby Kennedy. He has also deliberated over Obama’s style and words with an intensity bordering obsession learning all the idioms and cadences of his master’s voice and the final speeches are in the main collaborations. So much so that he was reputed to have coined the catchphrase ‘Yes we can’.
Fav has even used his unique role as a chat up line, but without much success. ”There’s been a few times when people have said, ‘I don’t believe you, that you’re Barack Obama’s speechwriter,’ to which I reply, ‘If I really wanted to hit on you, don’t you think I’d make up something more outlandish?’
