Ted Sorensen: from speechwriter to ghostwriter

Ted Sorensen is dead, but President Obama cleverly resurrected his masterpiece, the JFK inaugural, during last night’s State of the Union Address. “Ask not what your country can do for you,” JFK told American citizens in 1960, “ask what you can do for your country.”

And last night Obama admonished corporate executives: “Ask yourselves what you can do to bring jobs back to your country, and your country will do everything we can to help you succeed.”

Obama’s SOTU line didn’t make a huge splash—an Internet search doesn’t reveal much discussion of it—but I guarantee there wasn’t a speechwriter who missed it. Maybe that line was designed to appeal to our small but powerful demographic. —DM

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