Cody Keenan, Obama's speech-writer, brings a bit of fun, passion to the job

Six days before the state-of-the-union address, Cody Keenan posted on the photo-sharing site Instagram a blurred image of a speech draft with President Barack Obama's notes in the margins. He ended his internet posting with the tag "#SpoilerAlert #InsideSOTU-Cody".

No amount of eye-squinting could decipher the details, but if anyone knew exactly what Obama intended to say in his annual address to the nation, it was chief speech-writer Keenan.

The 33-year-old Keenan wrote his second state-of-the-union address after taking over duties last year from Jon Favreau, who left after five years in the job.

A Chicago native who once worked for the late senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, Keenan joined Obama's staff as an unpaid summer campaign intern in 2007 as Obama sought the Democratic presidential nomination.

At the end of the internship, he returned to Harvard University's John F Kennedy School of Government to earn a master's degree in public policy, graduating in 2008.

When the White House called him again, Keenan jumped at the chance to join the Obama administration, according to a 2010 interview he did with the Kennedy School.