Blogger Mark Nickolas tries an interesting trick regarding Obama's speaking level versus Bush's.
So, I just finished comparing the transcript of President Obama's first presidential press conference this evening with the very first one that former President George W. Bush conducted back on February 22, 2001.
I copied each full transcript into separate Word documents. After doing that, I deleted the introductions by both men (since those are largely or fully scripted) and then deleted all reporter questions from the transcripts. What you have left are simply the answers that each president offered, off-the-cuff and unscripted, to all questions.
Then I ran Word's readability tool.
Guess what?
Bush's answers were spoken at 7th grade level. Obama's at a 10th grade level.
Granted, such a tiny sample would hardly pass muster in a research setting, but this readily observable trend is an interesting one (and it seems certain it will continue, given the level of rhetoric we've seen from each since 2004).
Why did Americans go for the more accomplished speaker this time? And what is the best level of speaking for a president to employ? If, that is, a president is capable of flexibility in such matters. Is it better or worse to be a speaker who's over the heads of some of your constituents?
The weirdest aspect of Bush's descent into incoherity (hey, if Bush can do it, so can I) is that he wasn't always such a wounder of his native tongue. What's it all mean?
