More Charged Language

It is possible, in the midst of a three-hour, 39-minute baseball game, for the attention to wander. Anyway, while the Red Sox were clubbing Seattle yesterday afternoon, mine did. (Not enough for me to tune out; a win at Safeco is rare enough that I watch to the final out.) It wandered right over to the White House's webpage, where I continued looking at the frequency with which Bush used heated languages in speeches. See if you can spot the pattern*:

"Terror" and "Danger"



The pattern was thrown off slightly by 9/11, but sure enough, when it came time to scare soccer moms before an election, Bush was ready with the fear-mongering. Of course, he's not above emotional manipulation, either. Have a look at the next chart.

"Troops"



For a guy who has ridden the backs of the military harder than any president in American history, this is pretty cynical, don't you think? But cynicism isn't just for the troops. Bush also played the God card to the hilt.

"God"


Based on this pattern, it looks like we can expect to hear a lot more of "God," "the troops," "danger" and "terror" in a few months.

_______________
*As with the earlier graph, these use six-month averages, which is why the height of use doesn't necessarily correspond with the election. If an enterprising blogger wanted to break it down by month, it might be even more illustrative. Maybe I'll get to it during the next televised Red Sox game. (Might be awhile--I don't have cable.)

"al Qaeda" in the Air

Does it seem like Bush is using the phrase "al Qaeda" more frequently? Yes. That can only mean one thing: an election year is on the way. I did a search on that phrase at the White House's website, and what I discovered is depicted in the graph below (click to enlarge):


Say bereft Republicans: "Oh 'al Qaeda,' how long will you feed us?"

Is Anyone More Aptly Named Than Dick Cheney?

From the man who told a US Senator to go fuck himself and then shot a friend in the face, here are three more from the Veep:

1.
"I think the key to the issue right now is the security situation in Baghdad. I think the Maliki government is off to a pretty good start. Only time will tell. I'm fairly optimistic that going forward with this strategy will, in fact, work."

2.
"I think, in fact, if we were to do what Speaker Pelosi and Congressman Murtha are suggesting, all we'll do is validate the al Qaeda strategy. The al Qaeda strategy is to break the will of the American people. In fact, knowing they can't win in a stand-up fight, try to persuade us to throw in the towel and come home, and then they win because we quit."

3.
"And the point I made and I'll make it again is that al-Qaida functions on the basis that they think they can break our will. That's their fundamental underlying strategy, that if they can kill enough Americans or cause enough havoc, create enough chaos in Iraq, then we'll quit and go home. And my statement was that if we adopt the Pelosi policy, that then we will validate the strategy of al-Qaida. I said it and I meant it."

Nice.