FIRST LOOK

Photo Details Obama’s Speech Edits

Released by Pete Souza, chief White House photographer.

Great speeches are edited one 8½ by 11–inch piece of paper at a time. A rough draft of President Obama’s Inaugural Address, complete with scribbled edits by POTUS himself, was released by chief official White House photographer Pete Souza Tuesday morning via Flickr. The image provides a rare glimpse behind the scenes at the calculated process of crafting his prose. Seemingly pointing at one particular edit, his markings vary from small grammar changes to bigger tweaks. In one instance he opts to change “what we look like” to “the color of our skin,” no doubt a nod to Martin Luther King Jr., whose day of memorial fell on the same day as the speech itself.