The State of the State of the Union
WIRED magazine delivered its own intriguing message, in response to President Obama’s State of the Union message of Tuesday night. The message is one I tend to agree with, regardless of the subject, or the issue, or what statesman or politician is involved: Look to the data. Trust the data.
In this case, WIRED is calling into question various pundits’ commentaries on the meaning, or at least the tone, of Obama’s address. Well, perhaps not calling into question — but suggesting a path to a clear-headed assessment. You heard me: data.
Writer Issie Lapowsky says rather than just guessing, or polling listeners, or letting our feelies determine our reactions and comments regarding Obama’s speech, lets do some analysis of the actual language the president used.
Most optimistic? Most cynically political?
“Pundits have hailed it as one of the most optimistic State of the Union addresses of Obama’s presidency, but a closer look at the data says otherwise,” says Lapowsky.
The article then details how WIRED asked a natural-language-processing firm, Trajectory, to analyze all of President Obama’s State of the Union addresses since 2009, and compare them to this week’s speech.
Whether you personally thought the speech was full of good feelings and positivity, or not — you’ll be interested to review the charts and graphs Trajectory put together, and the conclusions.
The short answer: Obama’s speech “was neither his most positive nor his most negative but smack dab in the middle.”
It’s more complicated than that — see the charts
On the other hand, the analysis did show that although Tuesday’s speech featured about average optimism for the President, “it did end on a higher note than any address before it, and that’s saying something, considering President Obama’s speeches all follow that pattern.”
WIRED has a fantastic reputation for getting into the details to explain broad conclusions, and this article is no exception — it’s well worth perusing top to bottom, as Lapowski shows us data on Obama’s language regarding all the many difficult topics the president addressed on Tuesday and has faced over the past seven years, from economic collapse in 2009, through Osama bin Laden and terrorism, healthcare reform and mass shootings.
Beyond that, you can even play with Trajectory’s tool yourself, to try to analyze or at least explore some presidential speeches, and uncover your own revelations among the in-depth data available on each SOTU address, political perspectives, economic and budgetary concerns, educational directives, and social issues.
Opinions on all these may vary. Conclusions from the analysis might differ.
But the data is the data.
