Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Tracking Bullshit



The Obamissariat 
                                     





The State of the Union Bullshit in Context

This site lets you use a Bookworm database to read Obama's State of the Union in the context of all the other State of the Union messages given by American presidents. For any word in the message, just click on the text: the word will turn red. If you want to search a two-word phrase, just highlight both words. (You can't search for phrases longer than two words).

If you then click on a bar, you'll get an (ugly, unformatted, alas) list of all the times that President used the phrase. Certain forms of punctuation (hyphenated words, etc.) won't work quite right yet. Keep in mind that the State of the Union has changed a lot in its history. Of particular importance to understanding these charts is knowing that it was written, not spoken, before Woodrow Wilson. You're looking at the  address: change that dropdown to use any other year as a baseline.

Also, check out the two pieces Mitch Fraas and I wrote for the Atlantic on the language of past State of the Unions and the locations mentioned in past speeches. I owe the idea for this layout to Yoni Appelbaum and John Gould at the Atlantic. The text of the speeches is from the American Presidency project at UCSB, except for the 2015 text which I took from the White House's post at Medium. [Full]


Brock's 2015 SOTU

(It Works!)
  Dr. Tommy Lee Smith

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Climate change will require that we invest more in rebuilding trust
so that our warmest years will be better for black America's bisexual muslims.
I didn't watch the SOU, but Uhbama did say that, didn't he?
Lt. Col. Gen. Tailgunner dick

DonM said...

I just wish Boner and the rest of congress had decided not to invite Obama to address congress at all. Obama cannot just show up at his will. He needed a humiliating slap in the face.

Kim du Toit said...

Summary of all Obama's SOTU speeches:

Blah blah blah LIE blah blah LIE blah blah FALSE PROMISE blah blah LIE blah blah PARTISAN CRAP blah blah FALSE STATISTIC blah blah LIE blah blah LIE etc.

I may have missed a few lies here and there, but you get my drift.

Anonymous said...

King Obama opens most of his speeches with a lie when he says "My fellow Americans..."

Vlad-The-Inhaler

Anonymous said...

I was surfing through (or threw) the channels on my way to the State of the Union address but got sidetracked by an infomercial for some steak knives.
Tim

Darrell said...

Silent Cal, now more than ever.

Anonymous said...

Tailgunner, that's the most all encompassing political statement I've hear since I bought my "Nuke a Gay Whale For Jesus" bumper sticker. Continue on course sir. -Anymouse

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