Tuning into the middle of a Morning Joe segment today, at first I assumed that MSNBC's Ari Melber was chatting with the Oscar nominees. But no, turns out Melber had scored interviews with President Obama's State of the Union speechwriting team. You'll excuse my confusion. As you'll see, just like the Oscar hopefuls, the SOTU writers appear to be a panorama of people of pallor.
Melber had been given special behind-the-scenes White House access this past Friday night to do his piece. As the cameras roamed around, a couple of presumably relatively junior African-American staffers could be seen. But the senior folks, those out front and with whom Melber actually spoke, were, well, "driven snow" comes to mind. And turns out Obama's head speechwriter, Cody Keenan, is a . . . Sigma Chi frat guy.
The segment emphasized that, ultimately, President Obama is in charge of his speech, makes many edits, and confers closely with the writers. And while she wasn't mentioned, it's probably smart to assume that Valerie Jarrett plays an important SOTU role, too.
Perhaps Reverend Sharpton can call an emergency meeting to address the speechwriting's staff appalling pallidness.
