The best job in the world

by Yeoh Siew Hoon

So where were you the night a man named Barack Obama made history in America?

I wish I could say I was in Washington with the millions of people out there, freezing their little fingers off but staying warm in their hearts to witness a powerful moment in history.

I have to confess I am a big fan of the man. Beyond the significance of the moment – the first African American to rise to the highest job in the land and a beacon of hope for the world – beyond all the rhetoric, the man gives good speeches. The kind that gives you goosebumps.

And for me the best job in the world is no, not that job where you get paid A$150,000 for six months to swim with the sharks and protect the corals in the Great Barrier Reef – and no way would I get a tattoo just to land the job and in any case, the lady is a fake … (read The Wrap )

No, the best job in the world is to be Obama’s speechwriter. Imagine writing speeches for a man who so flawlessly turns your words into poetry. Who knows how to make each word count for so much. Who makes people want to hang on to every word he says.

Obama has brought back the power of words to change the world.

Jonathan Favreau, the director of Obama’s speechwriting team, however says he’s got the best and worst job in the world.

He’s got a boss who likes to write his own speeches and is actually pretty good at it, being himself an author of two best-sellers.

According to an article in Time.com, How Obama Writes His Speeches, “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.”

Said Obama’s top strategist, David Axelrod, “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.”

The 18-minute inauguration speech must have been one of the toughest Obama and his team had to write. It came with impossibly high expectations. Even his daughter had said, “Dad, it’d better be good.”

Knowing too that as soon as you deliver it, every commentator, every analyst would be dissecting every word, every syllable, every phrase …

True enough, the morning after his inauguration, the blogosphere came alive – some called it inspirational, brilliant, poetic; others called it unremarkable, workmanlike, even condescending.

Opined one: “It was well-delivered, but it consisted of a hodgepodge of themes, injunctions, and applause lines that did not speak directly to the crisis that the country faces.”

Another: “I thought that this was a speech with a lot of ideas but no theme and most importantly, this was a speech without a single memorable phrase.”

The New York Times gathered together former speech writers to presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush to judge the address and their comments ranged from mixed to marvellous.

In an editorial, though, the paper “declared that Mr Obama’s speech, though lacking the “soaring language” of Presidents Franklin D Roosevelt or John F Kennedy, gave the crowd “the clarity and the respect for which all Americans have hungered.””

Let’s face it, it was the right speech for the right time delivered by the right man.

Catch up with Yeoh Siew Hoon every week at The Transit Café. http://thetransitcafe.com/