30 year-old Chicagoan Wrote Tucson Speech

By Jack Cashill

In a Friday article I had speculated that chief Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau had penned Obama's over-praised Tucson oration, but it turns out that Obama elevated heretofore unknown Cody Keenan from the "eulogy and commencement beat" for his moment in the Arizona sun.

In an uncommonly frank moment Wednesday night, while flying back from Tucson on Air Force One, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told a Chicago Tribune reporter and others that Keenan had been the speechwriter.

By Thursday morning, Gibbs was insisting that "Obama had wielded the heavier pen." Added Gibbs, "I think last night was a speech that was very much the president's, and he spent a great deal of time going through his thoughts on this and spent a lot of time working on what he wanted to say,"

Apparently, Gibbs had forgotten that, unlike other political figures, Obama writes his own material.