For the last time in his presidency,
Barack Obama will take the stage
Tuesday night to address the American
people. The speech in Chicago will
bookend the political career of a
charismatic statesman known for his
powerful oratory, with several
memorable addresses marking
milestones in his White House tenure.
Each address is “a way to tell a story,”
Obama chief speechwriter Cody
Keenan told AFP, and the balancing
act each time is to offer a vision on an
issue without getting trapped by the
“very real danger of being out of
touch.”
“There were arguments internally in
the early years of the administration
about how optimistic and forward
looking you could get in economic
speeches when unemployment is still
at like 8 or 9 percent,” he said.
Obama, a former law professor, is
very involved in drafting his speeches.

“We will usually sit down with him in
the Oval Office and he will just talk
and we will type it out and that gives
us something to go work with,” Keenan
said.
“We’ll spend a couple of days, write a
draft, give it to him. If he doesn’t like
it, he will take out a yellow legal pad
and write his thoughts and if he does,
he will start outlining the whole
thing,” he said.
It usually takes three or four drafts to
arrive at a final product… which are
often tweaked at the last minute
anyway.
Here’s a look at five key speeches in
the career of the 44th president of the
United States.

– Boston: Disrupting the political scene
–
July 27, 2004
“There’s not a liberal America and a
conservative America; there’s the
United States of America. There’s not a
black America and white America and
Latino America and Asian America;
there’s the United States of America.”
At the time unknown on the national
scene, a young senator from Illinois
named Barack Hussein Obama — the
son of a Kenyan father and a white
American mother — was the breakout
star of the 2004 Democratic
convention.
“Probably his most successful speech
was the one where he introduced
himself to the country for the first
time,” Keenan said.
“All he did there was tell the country’s
story and tell his own story and weave
them together.”
– Cairo: Appealing to the Muslim world
–
June 4, 2009
“I’ve come here to Cairo to seek a new
beginning between the United States
and Muslims around the world, one
based on mutual interest and mutual
respect.”
Addressing the world’s 1.5 billion
Muslims with the traditional Arabic
greeting “Salam alaikum,” Obama
called for ending “this cycle of
suspicion and discord.”

– Oslo: War and peace –
December 10, 2009
“To say that force may sometimes be
necessary is not a call to cynicism — it
is a recognition of history; the
imperfections of man and the limits of
reason.”

Less than a year after taking office,
Obama delivered his views on the
conditions for using force as he
accepted the Nobel Peace Prize.
He also gave a nod to the
“considerable controversy” generated
by his winning the award.
“I am at the beginning, and not the
end, of my labors on the world stage,”
he pointed out.

– Selma: The march continues –
March 7, 2015
“We just need to open our eyes, and
our ears, and our hearts to know that
this nation’s racial history still casts its
long shadow upon us.”

Speaking at the Edmund Pettus Bridge
50 years after the brutal repression of
a peaceful protest there, America’s
first black president rallied a new
generation to the spirit of the civil
rights struggle.
Accompanied by his wife Michelle,
daughters Malia and Sasha, and 50
others, Obama then walked across the
infamous bridge over the Alabama
River.

– Charleston: Amazing Grace –
June 26, 2015
“For too long, we’ve been blind to the
way past injustices continue to shape
the present.”
Obama made the pronouncement
during a rousing eulogy for pastor
Clementa Pinckney and eight members
of his congregation at the historic
“Mother Emanuel” black church, who
were killed in a hail of gunfire
unleashed by a white supremacist.
After focusing on America’s struggles
with race and guns in a sermon-like
address, he paused — then began
singing “Amazing Grace.” The
thousands of mourners joined in.

Barrack is just a born orator. I so much love that 2004 DNC Speech.