White House foreign-policy speechwriter in the news

Posted By Annie Lowrey Tuesday, January 12, 2010 - 6:40 PM Share

Today brings a good Washington Post style section profile of the White House's speechwriter on national security and foreign policy, Ben Rhodes, as well as his inaugural contribution to the blogosphere. Our parent publication describes Rhodes' jobs thus: 

Rhodes, who wears hats as a foreign policy speechwriter, deputy national security adviser and sometime administration spokesman, is not new to the Obama team. He wrote Obama's statesman-in-training address in Berlin, the nuanced speech to the Muslim world in Cairo, the call for nuclear disarmament in Prague, the Nowruz message signaling engagement with Iran, and the modest, moving eulogy to the slain soldiers of Fort Hood. More recently, he wrote the president's Afghanistan address, acceptance speech of the Nobel Prize in Oslo, and letter to CIA employees following a suicide bombing attack on agents in Khost by a double agent. On Tuesday, Rhodes will be blogging for the White House on national security and foreign policy.

And blog he did. This week, in anticipation of Obama's first anniversary in office, a number of White House figures are writing year-in-review posts. In his, Rhodes named his policy highlights -- they make for interesting reading. For one, he puts the "unprecedented global cooperation" at the G-20 first. (Can't imagine some of the Bush-era guys touting paper agreements with a bunch of Europeans as a banner achivement.) He also describes the president's world-wide outreach, nuclear proliferation efforts, and pressuring of al Qaeda. 

SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

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