David Litt - Listening to Lips

 

Back when I was a speechwriter for President Obama– [audience cheers and applause] 

 

Thank you. That's my story. [audience laughter] Back when I was a speechwriter for President Obama, the ultimate White House power move was to stand up after you finished a meeting with the president, swipe an apple from the bowl on the Oval Office coffee table and then on your way out the door, take a big, juicy bite. And I never did that. I never even came close to doing that. 

 

It wasn't the writing part of my job that worried me. But you know how some people are afraid of spiders and some people are afraid of heights? When I started at the White House, I discovered that my very specific, very crippling fear was of being in an enclosed space with an important person and having to say things, [audience laughter] which turns out to be a problem when you work for the President of the United States. 

 

This was an especially big problem. In March 2013, I had just gone from writing speeches for the senior staff to writing speeches exclusively for the president. I was 100% sure that I deserved this promotion, except for a very large part of me that wasn't. [audience laughter] And so, my boss, Cody-- It's my first Oval Office meeting in my new job. My boss saunters into the Oval. I tiptoe behind him. 

 

And President Obama is sitting behind his desk. He's holding a page of jokes I've written for this thing called the Gridiron Dinner, which is this dinner for grouchy print journalists in D.C. But the president has to tell some jokes, and I've written some jokes, and he's holding them up, and he looks at us and he says, “So, are we funny?” And Cody, my boss, very generously turns to me and says, “Well, Litt’s pretty funny.” President Obama looks a tiny bit confused, but then he looks at me and he says, “Yeah, Lipps is pretty funny.” [audience laughter] 

 

Now, here, I need to make something very clear to you all. My name is not Lipps. [audience laughter] It's David Litt, L-I-T-T, which is what I should have told the president at the time. [audience laughter] Because when you work in the White House, I mean, yes, you want to make history, you want to do something no one in America has ever done before. But you also want to be the kind of person who can tell the leader of the free world, a hard truth, [audience laughter] And my name is an easy truth. [audience laughter] But standing there in the Oval Office, all I think to myself is, “Okay, I guess I'm Lipps now.” [audience laughter] 

 

We go through the rest of the meeting, and I don't correct the president and I do not take an Oval Office apple when I leave. But on my way back to my office, I begin to think to myself, sometimes the difference between being a coward and seizing an opportunity is really just a matter of perspective. [audience laughter] 

 

Let me explain what I mean. First of all, this was a moment every White House staffer dreams of their entire careers. The President of the United States had just referred to me by name. And technically, it wasn't my name. [audience laughter] But I don't want to get caught up in those details. And besides, this is the chance at the alter ego I so desperately need right now. Because you know me, David Litt is scared. Litt is timid, but Lipps, [audience laughter] Lipps is bold. [audience laughter] Lipps is daring. Lipps doesn't give a fuck. [audience cheers and applause] 

 

So, that's how I decide to write the rest of my speech. I'm going to be Lipps. And it turns out suddenly, everything is really easy. The jokes just all flow together. At the end of the speech, President Obama wants to say something sincerely nice about reporters. So, I write a line, “Reporters have risked everything to bring us stories from countries like Syria and Kenya.” I choose Syria, because it's an incredibly dangerous place. And I choose Kenya, because I like how it sounds next to Syria. 

 

And for a moment, I think to myself, should I run that line by an expert in foreign policy? But then, I hear this voice. It's in my head, and it sounds like my voice, only braver. And the voice says, “Dude, come on. Are you really going to overthink everything? Like, Syria ends in a ya sound. Kenya ends in a ya sound. You're the presidential speechwriter. It's going to sound great. Go get them, buddy.” [audience laughter] And so that's what I do. I listen to Lipps. 

 

A few nights later, I go and I watch President Obama deliver this speech. And Lipps was totally right. The jokes just flow one to the other. At the end of the speech, President Obama thanks reporters for bringing us stories from places like Syria and Kenya. He gets this big round of grateful applause. 

 

I go back to the office the next Monday, and I'm over the moon. I'm saying things like, “Well, it's all in the delivery,” which is speechwriter code for, “Well, I'm amazing.” [audience laughter] I'm just floating on this self-important cloud, and then I get a call from Terry. Terry is a senior speechwriter. He's one of the nicest guys I've ever met. He's also one of the best askers of leading questions I have ever known. Like, if Terry asks you, “How's your car?” It's been stolen. [audience laughter] 

 

And what Terry wants to know is, “Have you seen the headline of the Daily Nation?” Kenya's largest newspaper? And I say, “No.” And then, I say, “What?” and then I google it. The headline reads, “Kenya not safe foreign journalists, says Obama.” And things escalate very quickly. I mean, within minutes, it seems like people are writing stories about the stories. The foreign Minister of Kenya, on behalf of his entire country, condemns the President's remarks and he calls on the United States of America to apologize. I'm sitting in my office thinking, maybe I could just apologize. [audience laughter] And that's how I learned that having the power to start an international incident does not give you the power to stop one. [audience laughter] 

 

The whole day, this story is just getting bigger and bigger. And finally, by that afternoon, a senior White House official, speaking on background, has to issue a quote on behalf of, “We the people,” saying that the President misspoke and I quote, “Obviously, the situations in Syria and Kenya are very different,” which is senior White House official code for, obviously David is an idiot. So, I spend the next few weeks trying to figure out whether angering a nation of 44 million people is a fireable offense. It turns out the answer is not exactly. I don't get fired, but I stop getting assigned any big speeches. 

 

And then, finally, at the end of April, there's a big speech they have to assign me. It's the White House Correspondents Dinner. That's the big night of presidential joke telling each year. At that time in my White House career, I'm like our token funny person. And so, I have to take the speech. And from the very beginning, I decide I am not letting Lipps anywhere near this one. [audience laughter] I am doing this my way. And my way means I am overthinking everything. I mean, every comma in every word. I obsess over every sentence every period. 

 

We have the jokes and then we have these funny photoshopped slides. We did three slides where we took President Obama's head and we photoshopped Michelle Obama's new hairdo, which at the time was these eyebrow length bangs. We photoshopped them, so it's like President Obama and Biden playing golf, but Obama has bangs. Or, President Obama taking a stroll around the White House, but he's got bangs. Or, President Obama and Bibi Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, but he's got bangs. 

 

I drive our graphics team crazy. I'm like, “Can you move the bangs down a millimeter? Can you move them up a millimeter? Actually, can you move them down a millimeter?” I work so hard and I sleep so little that when I look back on those three weeks, I actually, barely remember any of it. It was like a coma, only more productive. [audience laughter] But finally, it's the Friday before the speech. The speech is on a Saturday. I look at the draft, and I think, this is actually really good. My way works. And then, I get a call from Terry, the senior speechwriter. And Terry has a question. Terry asks me, “So, I'm looking at the slides, the ones with the president and the first lady's hairdo. Is the joke that he looks like Hitler?” [audience laughter] So, I say, “No.” And then, I say, “What?” [audience laughter] And then, I look at the slides.

 

Honestly, in the first slide, it's fine. With that haircut, President Obama looks like Moe from The Three Stooges. [audience laughter] And in the second slide, he looks like Moe from The Three Stooges. But in the third slide, he looks like Hitler from Hitler. [audience laughter] You're just going to have to trust me here, because I know that President Obama does not look like Hitler on television and I can promise he does not look like Hitler in real life. But in that picture, at that angle and that light with that haircut, even without the mustache, the resemblance is uncanny. [audience laughter] He's standing in the picture next to Bibi Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel. [audience laughter] I can tell that Lipps would just leave it in. [audience laughter] But I decide I have caused my last international incident, and I am done listening to Lipps. So, I thank Terry profusely for saving me, and then I cut the picture from our draft. 

 

Now, the next day, it's the day of the speech, we have one last Oval Office run through. Cody, my boss, is out of town. So, we bring back two former speechwriters, one named Jon Favreau and one named Jon Lovett. [audience cheers] 

 

They saunter into the Oval Office, and I tiptoe behind them. Almost immediately, I get into a corner of the couch, and they're just bantering back and forth with the president and trying to make him laugh, and they're both winning. I'm just sitting there trying not to be noticed. In fact, I'm trying so hard not to be noticed that as we're running through these jokes, I almost don't notice when President Obama stops us and he says, “Well, hang on, guys. What happened to that picture of me and Bibi? I like that one.” And Jon Favreau says, “Well, Mr. President, we had to cut it.” And the President says, “Oh. Why?” [audience laughter] 

 

Suddenly, there's just total silence. [audience laughter] Because in all of American history, no one has ever compared the President to Hitler to the President. [audience laughter] And none of us wants to be the first. The seconds are ticking and each one is taking longer and longer. I'm starting to panic, because our only hope is that somebody is going to tell the leader of the free world a very hard truth. But I don't know who that's going to be, because who could possibly be that bold. I mean, who could possibly be that daring. [audience laughter] Is there anyone in this room [audience laughter] who truly just doesn't give a fuck? [audience laughter] 

 

And in that moment, I hear a voice. And it sounds like my voice, only stupider. [audience laughter] And the voice says, “Sorry, Mr. President. We couldn't use that slide, because you looked like Hitler in it.” [audience laughter] And then, my out of body experience comes to a crashing halt. [audience laughter] I have never been so scared in my life. I have no idea what the president is about to do next. 

 

What he does next, President Obama starts to laugh. [audience laughter] I don't just mean that he laughs. I mean, he really laughs. He kicks his feet up off the floor, he's hugging his knees to his chest, he's rolled back in the couch cushions. He laughs harder than I have ever seen him laugh before. I actually think that for a moment he laughed so hard he forgot who the president was. [audience laughter] I wish I could say that everything changed right then and there. 

 

Actually, when the laughter died down, we all went back to what we were doing. I'm sitting in the couch, just trying not to be noticed. But I realize, as we go through the rest of this speech, the rest of that meeting, that something has changed. For the first time, I'm not afraid anymore. When we stand up to leave, I still don't even think about swiping an Oval Office apple. But on my way out the door, President Obama stops me and he looks me in the eye and he says, “Thanks, Litt.” Thank you.