Pen and Tell: The first memoir by an Obama speechwriter adds to a stoned genre while avoiding its usual cynicism.

AuthorNussbaum, Jeff
PositionON POLITICAL BOOKS - Thanks, Obama: My Hopey, Changey White House Years - Book review

Thanks, Obama: My Hopey, Changey White House Years

by David Litt

Ecco, 320 pp.

Political speechwriters accept a basic bargain. You get to be heard: by the powerful people for whom you write, by the crowds who listen to them, by the reporters who cover them. In return, you don't get to be heard from. Speechwriters toil in anonymity, with bylines and glory denied. Among this small fraternity (and it still is, too often, a fraternity) it's considered gauche to take or seek credit for a novel argument or memorable line.

But when the principal leaves office, all bets are off. So they were for Sam Rosenman (Franklin Roosevelt) and William Safire (Richard Nixon), for Peggy Noonan (Ronald Reagan), Michael Waldman (Bill Clinton), and Matt Latimer (George W. Bush).

Now to this well-populated genre comes the first entrant from the Obama White House, David Litt's Thanks, Obama: My Hopey, Changey White House Years, a funny and unexpectedly moving reflection on Litt's journey from unpaid organizer in Ohio to speechwriter and in-house humorist for President Obama.

It should be noted that what it means to be a "speechwriter" has changed a great deal since the days of Ted Sorensen and Arthur Schlesinger Jr., when speechwriters tended to be policymakers first, poets second; thought partners, rather than ghostwriters (or "scribes," as my old boss AI Gore once bellowed from his office to summon my colleagues and me). Richard Nixon put an end to that. He created the first White House communications office, modeled on Madison Avenue advertising agencies; moved the whole operation across the street from the West Wing; and made his speechwriters--an impressive bunch that included William Safire and Pat Buchanan--subordinate to the communications director. Most modern speechwriting offices fit the description that the journalist D. T. Max used during the George W. Bush administration: "Policy and prose work their way on separate tracks at the White House, only meeting at higher levels."

Thus, most of these memoirs embrace the diminishment of the role, creating a recurring series of stories that can be summarized as "Gee whiz, look at little ol' me here in the White House!" Typically, as that sense of awe diminishes, so do the writer's enthusiasm and idealism, ultimately concluding somewhere on the spectrum of cynicism. While Litt doesn't quite break this mold, he modifies it enough to create a narrative that illuminates the challenges and triumphs of those whose...

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