[White House]

Bush's Speech by the Numbers

Here's a little more on Bush's foreign policy speech today (actually mostly about war and terror). I was struck by the vivid language of violence he used throughout his comments, seemingly trying to compensate for the fading power of 9/11 to provoke horror and reactivity. Compare the numbers of times he used dark language (I cite 171) compared with light, hopeful language (43). The quality of of the language, too, is very harsh. He used words like "humiliate," "murder," "destruction," and "madness," counterbalancing it with vague or martial language like "democracy" or "victory." (He also used Islam frequently, and while he paid lip service to peaceful Islam, he more often used it to invoke fear--in fact, in half the cases, he coupled the word with "radical" or "radicalism.")

The Dark and Violent
terror, terrorists, terrorism - 31
enemy, enemies - 26
radical, radicals, radicalism - 23
Islam, Islamic - 17
kill, killers - 13
fight - 12
extreme, extremism, extremists - 11
murder, murderous, murderers - 10
violence - 9
struggle - 8
evil - 6
"September the 11th" - 5

The Light and Hopeful
freedom - 19
democracy -14
victory - 6
peace - 4

You were also able to discern foreign policy from the number of times Bush cited different countries. Iraq got 38 mentions (the most of any word in the speech), but North Korea none. Saudia Arabia was mentioned more than Iran. And Afghanistan, a country we invaded four years ago, got only two mentions--as many as Jakarta.

Iraq - 38
Al Qaeda - 12
Saudi Arabia - 4
Pakistan - 4
Iran - 3
Jakarta - 2
Afghanistan - 2
North Korea - 0