Dems, Bloggers and a Four-Year-Old Respond to the State of the Union - In Video!

by Conor Kenny — January 25, 2007 - 4:46pm
  • Topics: U.S. Congress
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    Freshman senator and rising Democratic star Jim Webb (D-Va.) delivered the main Democratic response to Bush's speech (response text). He spoke of the rising income inequality in America and the growing pressure globalization is putting on the middle and professional classes. He stopped short, however, of offering any detailed plans beyond noting that the House had passed the first minimum wage increase in 10 years. On the foreign policy front, Webb delivered a strong rebuke to Bush's troop "surge" plan:

    We need a new direction. Not one step back from the war against international terrorism. Not a precipitous withdrawal that ignores the possibility of further chaos. But an immediate shift toward strong regionally-based diplomacy, a policy that takes our soldiers off the streets of Iraq’s cities, and a formula that will in short order allow our combat forces to leave Iraq.

    Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) delivered the Democratic Spanish-language response (English translation). He focused on the recent House achievements from their first 100 hours agenda and also delivered a strong statement against Bush's troop "surge," saying that Democrats "will not stand by as [American soldiers] sit in the crossfire of a civil war... It is time to discuss bringing our troops out of Iraq, not send more in." Beccara, presumably speaking for all congressional Democrats, also outlined what may be the Democratic plan for immigration this session:

    Our bipartisan principles for comprehensive immigration reform are clear: protect our borders responsibly, fix the backlogged visa process, and establish a path for legal residency for immigrants who have earned it through years of hard work.

    Finally, center-left blogger Josh Marshall of TalkingPointsMemo.com organized an innovative group on YouTube where people could post their own responses to Bush's speech, including one from a ridiculously cute four year old:



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    Text mining Dubya's 2001-2007 SotU speeches with the NYT

    Submitted by stephane mot on January 30, 2007 - 10:37am.

    The New York Times provided an exciting gimmick to fully enjoy the show : an online search engine comparing the usage of keywords during all SotU speeches since 2001.

    For example, the words Iraq/Iraqi(s) were never used in 2001, twice in 2002, and respectively 21, 24, 27, 16 and 34 times the following years. You can even visualize and localize all occurences in all speeches on a graph.

    If you compare "Security" with "Social Security", you can notice all 15 occurences of the former were actually associated with the latter in 2001. One year later, only 2 of 19 occurences of Security had something to do with health.

    Bush bats a steady 5,000 words and 53.5 "America" per speech, plus 5.7 for "United States". "China" is not exactly at the top of his mind : he uttered it once this year, tying the humble record of years 2002, 2003 and 2006. The "World" ? Dubya didn't care for it when he took office (2 mentions), gave it some consideration after 9/11 (19-26-13-15-27 between 2002 and 2006), and put it back to the bottom drawer in front of a semi-hostile audience (10).

    The word "peace" has never been so unpopular in his mouth : 3 miserable appearances in 2007 after a solid 6- 5- 10- 5- 12- 8 streak. On the other hand, "war" is back to its peak levels : 11 vs 2-13-13-12-5-2.

    Don't be fooled by this overall rather balanced 46-58 "peace-war" ratio : from 2001 to 2007, the POTUS mentioned only 19 "liberty" and 20 "democracy" vs 44 (non-social) "security" and 145 "terror".

    Another propaganda favorite looks almost abandoned this year : the "Freedom" agenda knocked only 3 times at our door (vs 8-14-5-8-21-17). W seems to have some trouble selling values this season, so he sticks to less vague concepts and pitches below the waist, where Joe Sixpack can catch a neither fast- nor knuckle- ball. Significantly, the part of "freedom" in the overall occurences of "free" is also at its lowest point : 27% vs an average 65%, after last year's staggering peak (94.4% !).

    Anyway... what George W. Bush said is one thing, how he looked another and what he'll do yet another. The actual State of the Union remains that of the Divided States of Amerika.

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    Stephane MOT -
    http://e-blogules.blogspot.com

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