White house wordsmith.

• Position: WASHINGTON - Jon Favreau as - Brief article

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AS one of his many staff announcements before Inauguration Day, Barack Obama appointed 27-year-old Jon Favreau as his director of speechwriting. Favreau (not the actor, and no relation to him) has had a hand in practically every speech that Obama has delivered over the last four years, following him from the Senate to the presidential campaign trail. Favreau, a 2003 graduate of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., began his writing career for Senator John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign. While legend has it that Obama writes his own speeches in longhand on a legal pad, a better historical account will...