Wow, this is awesome! The New York Times has a new tool which you can search for any word or phrase and visualize how many times it was said each year, going back to Bush’s inaugural address in 2001: The State of the Union in Words. In addition, they show you the word as a red dot within a gray thumbnail of each speech which you can click to see the context of the sentence around it.
For example, I searched for the word speaker. It usually gets one mention in the opening of the speech, but this year it was said 4 times as the POTUS overred personal congratulations to Nancy Pelosi. In 2002, Bush said Afghanistan 13 times and Iraq twice. This year he said Iraw 34 times and Afghanistan 4 times.
And as already noted by Facing South, Bush mentioned Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans recovery not one time in his speech this year. And as far as I can tell the word “Katrina” didn’t even get a mention last year although “New Orleans” showed up twice.
“War” is an old standby, being mentioned 1, 13, 13, 12, 5, 2, and 11 times. This is a really great tool for lazy reporters, bloggers, and weak-stomached lefties like myself who can’t actually stand to watch the speech!
Link via: David Weinberger.