Obama Inaguration 01/18/2008

We've elected a great speaker-AND a great writer! According to Time magazine, this is Obama's writing process:
"Obama takes an unusually hands-on approach to his speech writing, more so than most politicians. His best writing time comes late at night when he's all alone, scribbling on yellow legal pads. He then logs these thoughts into his laptop, editing as he goes along. This is how he wrote both of his two best selling books—Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope—staying up after Michelle and his two young daughters had long gone to bed, reveling in the late night quiet. For this speech Obama removed himself from the distractions at home and spent many nights in a room in the Park Hyatt Hotel in Chicago. These late-night sessions produced long, meandering texts that were then circulated to a close group of advisers, including Axelrod and Obama's speechwriter Jon Favreau—a 27-year-old wunderkind wordsmith. "When you're working with Senator Obama the main player on a speech is Senator Obama," Axelrod said. "He is the best speechwriter in the group and he knows what he wants to say and he generally says it better than anybody else would."

I think that Obama agrees with me on the power of words. They are what I remember most from past presidents, and they are what motivates a country to believe in something.
I cannot wait to hear his Inaugural Address!!

Here is my list of people who changed the world with their speeches:
1) Martin Luther King, Jr. "I Have A Dream"
2) John Fitzgerald Kennedy Inaugural Address
3) Franklin Delano Roosevelt First Inaugural Address
4) Barbara Charline Jordan 1976 DNC Keynote Address
5) (General) Douglas MacArthur Farewell Address to Congress
6) Martin Luther King, Jr. "I've Been to the Mountaintop"
7) Clarence Seward Darrow " Mercy for Leopold and Loeb"
8)John Fitzgerald Kennedy " Ich bin ein Berliner"
9) Thomas Woodrow Wilson War Message
10) Russell H. Conwell "Acres of Diamonds"