In March of 2010, the White House flickr feed offered a glimpse of President Obama taking chief speechwriter Jon Favreau through his meticulous editing of that year's state of the union address.
This year they've done it again. The above photo shows Favreau standing in the Oval Office holding a draft with marked with the president's neat annotations behind his back.
A close read provides a behind the scenes view of how Obama crafts his message on the economy (click here for the large version on the White House feed).
In one notable change, Obama struck out the last of half of a sentence where his speechwriters had written that the American economy is strong "not just because of the size of our profits or the amount of our wealth." In place of the references to profits and wealth, he substitutes "the dominance of our companies or the size of our shopping malls."