Obama's Press Conference Answers Three Formal Grade-Levels Higher Than Bush's First

[jefferson_dem]

Obama's Press Conference Answers Three Formal Grade-Levels Higher Than Bush's First

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.

OBAMA'S FIRST PRESS CONFERENCE ANSWERS (2-9-2009):



BUSH'S FIRST PRESS CONFERENCE ANSWERS (2-22-2001):



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-nickolas/obamas-press-conf-answers_b_165467.html

[Clio the Leo]

1. Somebody forward this to Rachel!

It's right up her alley! lol love it!


She can talk about it when she's done saying 'wonky sermon."

[Cha]

26. Really..she's the

first one I thought of.

"10th grade level"..I knew I liked it!

[politicasista]

2. Me will take a "long-winded," intelligent president over a bumbling goof

every day of the week. Glad to have a real adult in charge for a change. :bounce:

[Ichingcarpenter]

3. As a professor he spoked to the 10th grade adults

Bush spoke to bevis and butthead.

I thought I was at lecture with Obama
he schooled the nation.

I'm sure his word level could be higher
but he keep it

REAL

[ashling]

8. Not quite

Bush "spoke," Obama "spoke" LOL

[Jennicut]

4. Oh boy. That is sad that Bush operated at such a low level.

Thanks Prez Obama for being an intelligent adult.

[NYC_SKP]

5. Nice find! Rec number 5.

Not at all surprised, glad someone did it.

[Xipe Totec]

6. It takes a 10th grade edumacation to undestand the man? We're screwn!

We just lost 70% of the Amurikan pubic.

:rofl:

[Bjorn Against]

7. No wonder the freepers never seemed to be able to figure out what Bush was really up to...

The man was speaking way beyond their level.

[chknltl]

9. Unbelievable! I did not know that bush was smarter than a 5th grader!

Knock me over with a feather!

[pnwmom]

10. Those readability measures are tricky, however. I read another comparison

where Palin came out looking more intelligent than some articulate Democrat (I don't remember who it was) because her whacked out sentence structure ended up being calculated at a higher reading level. (Meaning you'd have to read at a higher level in order to hang on long enough to discover any meaning at all in her twisted syntax.)

[demokatgurrl]

14. Yeah, all those "gotchas" and "you betchas" count. n/t

[gkhouston]

24. my mom had a phrase for that...

"eating a mile of that shit to see where it comes from" }(

[uberblonde]

11. Newspapers are written at a 4th grade level.

That's because most people don't function at a higher reading level. He might want to bring that down a notch.

[alcibiades_mystery]

12. Nonsense

Even tabloid newspapers are written at the 8th and 9th grade level.

[seaker]

13. Good use of Word!

Glad you thought of it. Well done.

[phatkatt]

15. Didn't Bush even script the questions?

I know at one session he looked down to a list of reporters to call on, so he knew the questions in advance. Not sure about his first, though.

[ginnyinWI]

16. yet more evidence of the folly of heredity leaders.

Bush never got anywhere in life on his own merits. Never had to worry about grades or achievement--knew he could rely on his famous name. Anything he ever got was because of it--because of Daddy's connections and sycophants. All of his screw-ups were covered up, so why should he bother himself with improvement? Life was just a bowl of cherries, as they say, so Party On!

Obama was the polar opposite. Everything he got was because of his own sweat. Extra tutoring from mom, because Indonesian schools weren't good enough. Scholarship to a nice school in Hawaii because of his grades, not name. Columbia, Harvard Law--all his own work. As a member of a minority group this was even harder--although it would be a challenge to anyone to become the president of Harvard Law.

His mother told him, "you got your brains from your father", but that was the last advantage he ever got. The rest he got for himself. He used his talents and didn't screw up.

That's the way a person is supposed to become President.

[A Giant Slor]

17. Audio of Bush's first presser

Can anyone find video of Bush's first press conference, Feb 22, 2001? I found streaming audio:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080306034047/http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/02/20010222-5.ram

But W's stammering buffoonishness really comes through on the video. (I remember watching it on TV an being mortified.)

[Lars39]

18. Welcome to DU, A Giant Slor!

:toast:

[A Giant Slor]

22. Thanks

Thanks, good to be here. :)

[Zodiak]

25. Great screen-name!

Gozer would be proud.

[Occam Bandage]

19. That doesn't really demonstrate much. That only counts sentence/paragraph length. Look:

I went to the zoo, and then I saw a bear, well really it was two bears, but they were really scary bears, and they have big bear teeth and long scary claws and if I were to fall in there the bears might eat me up because big brown bears like that look hungry and scary. (Grade level: 12.0)

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. (Grade level: 8.8)

(Performed using Word 2004)

[Aloha Spirit]

20. Palin spoke at a higher grade level than Biden...

are these grade level thingies more than simply wordcount per sentence or clauses per sentence?

[Occam Bandage]

21. Nope. Just word count, signifying nothing but a lack of periods.

It's designed to suggest readability level as a rough estimate, not to demonstrate speaking or writing level. A good writer or speaker can often be quite concise. Hemingway, for example.

[A Giant Slor]

23. Jake Tapper on Bush's first press conference

Jake Tapper reviewed W's first presser the day after on Salon.com:

http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/02/23/press_conference/

Money quote: "President Bush's first formal press conference in office must be seen as an utter failure in achieving the president's No. 1 goal: appearing calm and in command."

[Cha]

27. Is that why bush kept

his pressers down to a bare minimum?