Twitter messages are bubbling up to the President.
Ari MelberPresident Obama has a new speechwriter: Twitter.
In an unusual move at a campaign rally this weekend, Obama quoted a witty tweet that went viral during the Democratic National Convention. Recalling President Clinton’s detailed, wonky speech about economic policy, Obama said, “Somebody sent out a tweet, ‘He needs to be made Secretary of Explaining Stuff.’ I like that!” Obama later joked, “I have to admit, it didn’t say ‘stuff,’ ” drawing laughter and applause.
The original tweet, by New Yorker editor Ben Greenman, did not say “stuff,” but it was not profane, either:
The item immediately went viral during the speech, ultimately drawing over 8,000 retweets, a remarkably high number that reflects both massive interest in Clinton’s address—25 million TV viewers—and interest in the cheeky proposal from Greenman, who has about 10,000 followers on Twitter.
“Obviously a lot of people were thinking something similar,” said Greenman, when reached by phone after the president quoted him. The tweet was shared by everyone from journalists and politicos to Anita Baker and MC Hammer, he said, because it was a “felicitous turn of phrase that captured the thoughts of thousands of other people.”
Obama may be the first president to quote a tweet in a speech, but he did not personally log on to the network to find the phrase.
He first cited it as something he received by “e-mail” after Clinton’s address, telling a Florida rally, “That was pretty good—I like that—secretary of explaining stuff.” Then, a day later, Obama appended the Twitter shout-out.
“He’s very tech-savvy,” says Greenman, so “someone may have reminded him, let’s respect the etiquette of this medium”—crediting sources. (After Obama first used the line, Foreign Policy editor Blake Hounshell tweaked the president for stealing a “Twitter joke.”)
While Greenman has not heard directly from anyone who works for the Obama campaign, he says the rapid spread of the tweet—from widespread attention on Wednesday night to a presidential citation over the weekend—shows how thoughts can filter up from the social network. He likened the online explosion of the quip to watching “an inconsequential stock market.”
Consequential or not, Greenman is standing by his proposal. He hopes the position will be created so Clinton can be appointed the secretary of explaining things. “I’d like to go to the swearing-in ceremony,” he told The Nation. That’s about as likely, he added, as the Dolphins making it to the Super Bowl this year.
Ari MelberTwitterAri Melber is The Nation's Net movement correspondent, covering politics, law, public policy and new media, and a regular contributor to the magazine's blog. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and a J.D. from Cornell Law School, where he was an editor of the Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy. Contact Ari: on Facebook, on Twitter, and at amelber@hotmail.com. Melber is also an attorney, a columnist for Politico and a contributing editor at techPresident, a nonpartisan website covering technology’s impact on democracy. During the 2008 general election, he traveled with the Obama Campaign on special assignment for The Washington Independent. He previously served as a Legislative Aide in the US Senate and as a national staff member of the 2004 John Kerry Presidential Campaign. As a commentator on public affairs, Melber frequently speaks on national television and radio, including including appearances on NBC, CNBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, C-SPAN, MSNBC, Bloomberg News, FOX News, and NPR, on programs such as “The Today Show,” “American Morning,” “Washington Journal,” “Power Lunch,” "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell," "The Joy Behar Show," “The Dylan Ratigan Show,” and “The Daily Rundown,” among others. Melber has also been a featured speaker at Harvard, Oxford, Yale, Columbia, NYU, The Center for American Progress and many other institutions. He has contributed chapters or essays to the books “America Now,” (St. Martins, 2009), “At Issue: Affirmative Action,” (Cengage, 2009), and “MoveOn’s 50 Ways to Love Your Country,” (Inner Ocean Publishing, 2004). His reporting has been cited by a wide range of news organizations, academic journals and nonfiction books, including the The Washington Post, The New York Times, ABC News, NBC News, CNN, FOX News, National Review Online, The New England Journal of Medicine and Boston University Law Review. He is a member of the American Constitution Society, he serves on the advisory board of the Roosevelt Institute and lives in Manhattan.