Just for the hell of it I decided to run a word check of Bush’s speech to see if demonstrated his usual diversity of vocabulary. I wasn’t disappointed.
Bush invoked the word “terror” or a variation of it 34 times in his 28-minute speech (that’s an average of once every 49 seconds if you’re counting).
Moving right along:
“Freedom” was mentioned 21 times
“mission” 12 times
“September 11th” was invoked 5 times
“Bin Laden” was mentioned twice
“Al Qaeda” only merited a single mention this time around.
Funny, “weapons of mass destruction” merited nary a mention.
And not one mention of nukular.
I did a similar exercise this morning.
You’ll also note that oil was not mentioned. Nor was Israel (though Poland got a nod!). Victory was only mentioned as part of a Bin Laden quote. Success was only mentioned as what the rest of the world understands must happen.
I did come up with some other frequent mentions, all graphic, but I wanted to keep the post brief. Attack, insurgents, and kill each got six mentions. He only mentioned peace three times. I guess peace is not very high up on his agenda. On the other hand, we must be making progress, because that word came into play seven times.