Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Stats on Bush's Speech...
...provided by the ever-wonderful Maia Cowan of FailureIsImpossible. Maia did a word count on the transcript of the speech Bush gave last night. Notice what his favorite words were: Iraq (-i) 90 free (-dom) 35 terror (-ism, -ist) 31 America(-n) 24 I 21 fight (-ers, -ing) 15 military 14 security 14 war 13 us 12 coalition 11 democracy (-tic) 11 mission (-s) 11 world 11 elections 8 fail (-ed) 7 progress 7 ally/allies 6 insurgents 6 constitution (-al) 5 September 11 5 enemy (-ies) 4 Afghanistan 2 bin Laden 2 Saddam Hussein 2 al-Qaida 1 Taliban 1 win 0 (zero) And the five (count 'em, five) references to September 11. (Not blaming Iraq for September 11, oh no, not he. Just saying we're in Iraq to fight the same people who attacked us.) Here are the five references to September 11 -- and get a load of how Bush's flacks, usually so good at putting words in his mouth, have created some of the most inelegant (not to mention content-starved) sentences ever seen: "The troops here and across the world are fighting a global war on terror. This war reached our shores on September 11, 2001." "After September 11, I made a commitment to the American people: This nation will not wait to be attacked again. We will take the fight to the enemy. We will defend our freedom." "The only way our enemies can succeed is if we forget the lessons of September 11, if we abandon the Iraqi people to men like Zarqawi and if we yield the future of the Middle East to men like bin Laden." "We are fighting against men with blind hatred and armed with lethal weapons who are capable of any atrocity. They wear no uniform; they respect no laws of warfare or morality. They take innocent lives to create chaos for the cameras. They are trying to shake our will in Iraq just as they tried to shake our will on September 11, 2001." "After September 11, 2001, I told the American people that the road ahead would be difficult and that we would prevail. Well, it has been difficult. And we are prevailing." Notice the incredibly clumsy efforts to spot-weld 9/11 and Iraq together in our subconsciouses without actually seeming to do so? Even Bush's speechwriters are starting to crack under the strain.
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