Tag Clouds of Obama's Inaugural Speech Compared to Bush's

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/tag_clouds_of_obamas_inaugural_speech_compared_to_bushs.php

by Anon84 • 18 years ago

32 24 18 years ago

Interesting to look at. More interesting would have been to compare it with W Bush, Clinton, HW Bush, and Reagan and see how it evolved.

marshallk• 18 years ago

that's a great idea

jhancock• 18 years ago

Also would be interesting to use the same font and color scheme for the different clouds. I can't help but feel (just by looking at, not reading) the two clouds that the Obama one felt "warmer".

trickjarrett2• 18 years ago

Quite true.

gaius• 18 years ago

I'm sure that's just coincidence.

pg• 18 years ago

The most striking thing to me was that he explicitly mentioned curiosity. It's not just hard to imagine Bush doing that; it's hard to imagine any recent president.

zhyder• 18 years ago

How about "risk-taking"? I like that Obama frequently mentions it as a virtue, but am not sure if it's common among presidents.

davidw• 18 years ago

"Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things ..."

I liked that bit, as well as "We will restore science to its rightful place", and the mention of "non-believers".

pogos• 18 years ago

BBC prefers to call it "key words"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/obama_inauguration/78406...

Locke• 18 years ago

I think it's fascinating how interested people are in quantitative analysis of speeches. How many times did he use the word "I". Which president said "I" the fewest times in an inauguration speech? What's the tag cloud look like.

Obama gave a beautiful speech today -- no doubt the use of language and delivery are a large part of that, but I find the beauty of his speeches is in the ideas.

Too often politicians fall back on flowery, patriotic language that lacks meaning and substance. Obama's speeches seem, to me, full of purpose and direction. They clearly communicate values, priorities, and objectives.

bprater2• 18 years ago

You have to give some points to his speech-writer magicians.

I don't know who wrote this speech, but that person is very good at getting the points across that his administration wanted the people to hear -- but could also could hear Obama speaking.

But you are right -- this will go down in history as a historic and elegant speech.

troystribling• 18 years ago

There was a post about him here a few weeks ago http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/fashion/20speechwriter.htm...

jimbokun• 18 years ago

What I find interesting is that no single word jumps out as much as "freedom" for Bush or "government" for Reagan or "new" for Clinton. This is consistent with what you are saying, Obama is not trying to drive home a single word or concept to "brand" his Presidency, he is actually explaining where he thinks the country is and where it needs to go.

My favorite part was the line about "putting aside childish things." It was a short but powerful dig at the last two decades (at least) of partisan politics. Grow up, get past the childish name calling, and get to work on solutions to our considerable problems.

bbgm• 18 years ago

That was the first thing that jumped out at me as well. One might have thought "change" would get that, but no, it was a balanced speech. Regardless of what happens in the next few years, a great start

madh• 18 years ago

Obama's most prominent word is "nation." Perhaps with the added benefit of hindsight, we can attribute more specific meaning to "nation" as we do with the terms highlighted in the previous inaugural addresses.

mhb2• 18 years ago

Format of the NY Times version makes it a lot easier to make comparisons: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/01/17/washington/200...

tptacek• 18 years ago

Pretty, but a histogram would have done a better job at presenting this comparison.

DenisM• 18 years ago

I just can't find any meaning in this tag cloud thing. Never did actually.

mhb2• 18 years ago

The letter clouds are where the real insight is to be gained.

bprater2• 18 years ago

I think it clues you into the president's general thinking. Obama tended to use the word 'nation' and Bush liked the word 'freedom'.

If you didn't know who was speaking and you saw 'health', 'Africa', 'AIDs', you might assume a scientist or doctor is speaking.

And sometimes art is just that, art. It resonates with you or it doesn't.

Prrometheus• 18 years ago

I still don't get what "nation" vs. "freedom" tells me.

gyeh• 18 years ago

Thank god, he didn't say "hope" and "change" that much...

Tag Clouds of Obama's Inaugural Speech Compared to Bush's

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