Glory, in the back of the room

AARP CEO Bill Novelli keynoted the Speechwriter's Conference on Feb. 10. The day before, he delivered a major policy address at the National Press Club. His speechwriter Boe Workman invited me to hear it.

I was thrilled, of course.

The National Press Club is not a place in the world, but rather a channel on my television set and a slot on my radio dial. The channel is called CSPAN, that slot is NPR. So getting into the National Press Club, for me, was a trip into another dimension.

Any trip to Washington is a trip into an at-once familiar and strange Otherworld, where Dick Gephart is spotted at the Mayflower Hotel restaurant looking just as plasticky and shiny as he does on TV, where men humiliate their secretaries in front of strangers on elevators (saw this at the National Press Club), and where one can be overheard in a hotel bar worrying about the safety of a potential presidential candidate named Hillary Rodham Clinton and be passed a note by a person claiming to be a longtime friend of hers urging one not to express such sentiments in public.

As creepy as Washington can be, it's probably the best home for serious speechwriters. It's the place where the words that are chosen for the speeches that are given will truly influence the course of history.

That fact never seemed so real to me as it did as I sat with Workman and a half-dozen other AARP communicators and friends of the organization at a table in the far back corner of the room, listening to Novelli hold forth on the subjects of Medicare and Social Security reform in a coherent, big-picture speech. Novelli not only laid down the organization's nuanced opposition to President Bush's intention to radically reform Social Security, but he drew a holistic economic picture in answer to the real question that Bush and all of us should be asking, "Can America Afford to Grow Older?"

And all as those CSPAN camera's rolled and the NPR microphones recorded.

At the end of the speech, several hundred raised faces applauded Novelli enthusiastically as he nodded graciously at the lectern.

Not our table.

We all turned and smiled and clapped at our man Boe Workman, who sat there grinning happily. He and Novelli had worked very hard on this speech, and he was glad it was over and glad it went over, and he wasn't trying to hide that joy.

"Great speech, Boe!"

"Yeah, fantastic!"

"So smart!"

And after the Q&A, as Workman and I made our way through the crowd between that back table and the podium揺e wanted to introduce me to Novelli預 half-dozen more people came up and shook Boe's hand or slapped him on the back. One woman gave him a big hug.

Does Novelli have no need at all to publicly claim authorship of his own remarks? I wondered. And isn't Workman even a little shy about getting all this credit?

The next day during Novelli's and Workman's joint presentation at the Speechwriter's Conference, I would hear some answers.

More to come.