SPEECHWRITING 101: Say something TRUE

The most valuable lesson I learned about speechwriting from my former boss, first lady Michelle Obama, is this: Say something true.

The pacifist priest, Father Daniel Berrigan, once described it well when he spoke of the “danger of verbalizing my moral impulses out of existence.” It’s that moment when we try to drown out an inconvenient truth with a flood of words: explanations, rationalizations, justifications—anything to assuage our addled conscience and quiet that inner moral voice telling us things we do not wish to hear.

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