Parsing Bush's State of the Union words over 7 years

Here's something you can't do with your newspaper.

The Times' Ben Welsh has deconstructed online the most common words from every one of President Bush's seven State of the Union speeches and one Budget Address. They total 40,655 words and it took Bush six hours and 57 minutes to deliver them all over his entire term. (Although last night's address, the longest by 174 words, was likely Bush's last State of the Union, some presidents like Ford and Johnson have chosen to speak to joint sessions one last time just days before they leave office.)

Now, don't ask someone who blogs with two fingers how Welsh did this, but he's imaginatively created what's called a word cloud. You can find it here on this website. Using the president's own words and the frequency in which he uses them, it's an amazing and creative tool for even non-historians to measure right before their very eyes how national times and presidential priorities change over the years.

Notice how the words in Welsh's word cloud are different sizes; the more often they're used, the larger the type. Now put your cursor on the little thingy with the arrows that runs across the top of the type and drag it to the left. The dates of the speeches change.

You are literally moving back through time and all eight speeches. See how the words change in size. "America" and "Americans" are usually large as are words like "Congress," "health" and "must" because they're used so often, perennially. So was "Saddam" and "Hussein" and "weapons" back before 2003. Now, not at all.

"Al Qaeda" doesn't appear until 2002. "Security" appears more often as time passes. "Children" are there along with "health" and then "retirement."

You can detect your own patterns over the years. Feel free to offer your observations in the comments below.

--Andrew Malcolm

Correction: An earlier version of this post included a comparison of exact word counts between years that was mistakenly drawn from an incomplete draft analysis. It has been removed.

Comments

[robin]

Hi Mr. Malcolm,

Since you usually write very balanced coverage of the presidential race, I wanted to ask you why the main editors of your newspaper have been ignoring Congressman Paul.

I know that many Paul supporters sound like a broken record... "ron paul's being excluded!" However the reason people are saying this is because it is true. Even people who don't support Ron Paul think it is a disgrace what is happening to him.

In today's LA times, 1/29/08, there was an entire page (a16) devoted to the GOP candidates. 4 candidates got 1/4 page each. However Dr. Paul was not even mentioned. Giuliani was given coverage although he is currently in 5th and Ron Paul is in 4th.

What gives?

also, check out this:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/

Bill Richardson, who left the race a month ago is shown in the photos at top, but of course, no Ron Paul.

My family has been living in Los Angeles for 4 generations. We all subscribe to the LA times, however we are upset with the lack of coverage that the Times has given Dr. Paul.

I sure wish the LA times was more balanced in its coverage. I don't need my newspaper telling me that they don't have to cover my candidate of choice because they don't deem him worthy. That is insulting to me. Newspapers should give the news... not decide it.

I am going to ask my extended family and friends to cancel their subscriptions to the LA times because of this.

However, I did want to thank you for your blog. You are the saving grace of this paper as far as I'm concerned.

Sincerely,

Robin Nelson
los angeles