Jodi, Why Don't You Count Bush's Word Usage
Sat Jul 03, 2004 at 05:48:47 PM PDT
x-posted at
Kautilyan
(and emailed to Daniel Okrent)
I knew Jodi Wilgoren was up to no good when she started her front page article with:
"Forty-eight minutes into a rambling speech about education, health care, jobs and equal opportunity here the other morning, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts..."
(my emphasis)
She then lists a few examples of Kerry's use of the word "values" and then writes:
Last Saturday, Mr. Kerry used the V-word no fewer than eight times in a 36-minute speech to Hispanic leaders and next Wednesday he is scheduled to give a speech on his "plan to restore America's values to the White House."
(my emphasis)
I didn't have to read further to write this post (thank goodness). I suddenly remembered this post by Max Sawicky where he points out Bush's incessant use of "confidence" and "entrepreneur" in his speech on Friday. So I looked up Bush's remarks and did the word count. Bush used the word confident or confidence 24 times and used some version of the word entrepreneur 14 times
So then I looked for the front page article about Bush's speech and his sudden shift in tone towards promoting confidence and entrepreneurial activity...but I couldn't find it!
I expected it to start something like this:
WASHINGTON D.C, July 2 -- In a monotonous speech about the decline in job growth several months after the end of a three year "jobless recovery", President Bush seemed to think that if he said the word "confidence" enough times people would become confident. "I've just met with some small business owners. I'm going to introduce them here in a second. They're confident." Bush said before a hand picked audience of businessmen, or as Bush would call them "entrepreneurs". ... President Bush used the C-word no fewer than twenty four times and the E-word no fewer than 14 times in the 40-minute speech* to business leaders
In my dreams. I still can't believe that Wilgoren has the audacity to write about politics after stunts like these. I won't hold my breath for the "reader's representative" at the New York Times, Daniel Okrent to raise his voice about this outrageous unbalanced coverage. After a bit of tut-tutting he always seems to have some excuses for the Times writers and editors. For once, Mr. Okrent represent the readers and just the readers and resist the need to make excuses for the Times!
UPDATE: I looked past page A1 and on page B1, Edmund Andrews writes about Bush's speech and his take on the economy but shockingly doesn't do the parallel word count!
Here's an excerpt for Andrews' article:
In an otherwise buoyant speech shortly after the government reported a surprisingly weak increase in employment in June, Mr. Bush struck a momentarily cautious note.
"We've got an economy which is changing,'' he told a group of small-business owners at the White House on Friday morning. "The nature of the job base is changing. And all of that means it's been a difficult period of time.''
Even as he declared that "we're getting stronger'' and that the economy had "momentum,'' Mr. Bush seemed to lower his goals ever so slightly.
"We don't need boom-or-bust-type growth,'' he said. "We just want steady, consistent growth so that our fellow citizens will be able to find a job.''
*my Real Audio Player wasn't working so I couldn't figure out how long the speech really was!
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