Over at Huffington Post, Sam Stein breaks down Obama's Afghanistan speech with a word count. You see these sort of posts after every major speech and sometimes they're less enlightening than others. Stein's conclusion; "Low On Democracy, Heavy On Security."
We even get a handy word cloud:
Click for larger image
The under-emphasis of democracy in Afghanistan probably has a lot to do with how badly the Afghan government has failed to guarantee it. Am I the only one who noticed a little hitch in his voice when the president spoke this paragraph (emphasis mine)?
It didn't sound like a stumble to me. It sounded like he choked on it a little. On the bright side, it sounds like we've finally got a president capable of a modicum of shame.
A look at the text of the president's speech, as provided by the White House, however, suggests far less neoconservative idealism and thinly-veiled religiosity than what George W. Bush brought to the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. In its place, words were chosen that emphasized foreign policy pragmatism and acknowledgments of shades of gray in times of war.
On Tuesday night, the President said the words:
Democracy: 2 (once to talk about the U.S. Capitol building the other to describe Pakistan)
Freedom: 3 times
Terrorism: 0 times (though three mentions of "terrorist")
Extremism: 4 times
By contrast, the President uttered the words:
Security: 28 times
Allies: 11 times (one mention of alliance)
Responsibility: 7 times
Resources: 6 times
Diplomacy: 3 times
Clear: 16 times
Goal: 6 times.
We even get a handy word cloud:
Click for larger image
The under-emphasis of democracy in Afghanistan probably has a lot to do with how badly the Afghan government has failed to guarantee it. Am I the only one who noticed a little hitch in his voice when the president spoke this paragraph (emphasis mine)?
Since then, we've made progress on some important objectives. High-ranking al Qaeda and Taliban leaders have been killed, and we've stepped up the pressure on al Qaeda worldwide. In Pakistan, that nation's army has gone on its largest offensive in years. In Afghanistan, we and our allies prevented the Taliban from stopping a presidential election, and — although it was marred by fraud — that election produced a government that is consistent with Afghanistan's laws and constitution.
It didn't sound like a stumble to me. It sounded like he choked on it a little. On the bright side, it sounds like we've finally got a president capable of a modicum of shame.
