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Obama Three Grade-Levels Smarter Than Bush
Obama's first press conference answers are three grade-levels higher than the answers Bush gave during his first press conference.
By comparing the transcript of President Obama's first presidential press conference on Feb 9, 2009 with the very first one that former President George W. Bush conducted back on February 22, 2001, Mark Nickolas, has established empirically what many of us have known all along. Barack Obama is, quite simply, smarter than George Bush.
At the first press conerence for each, Bush's answers were spoken at 7th grade level, Obama's at a 10th grade level.
Each full transcript was copied into separate Word documents. After doing that, the introductions by both men were deleted (since those are largely or fully scripted). Then all reporter questions were deleted from the transcripts. What's left is the answers that each president offered, off-the-cuff and unscripted, to all questions.
Word's readability tool was run. The result?
OBAMA'S FIRST PRESS CONFERENCE ANSWERS 2-9-09:
BUSH'S FIRST PRESS CONFERENCE ANSWERS 2-22-01:
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Just for fun, I ran your post through the same test.
Grade level: 8.3
Congrats. You can write for Newsweek
:-)
I didn't know this was a Word option. But from now on, I'm going to use it obsessively.
June 12, 2009 11:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
awesome. ;)
June 12, 2009 3:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nice catch.
June 12, 2009 12:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
THIS IS TERRIFIC RON!!!! You know this fits right in with AMike's blog. Do not miss it.
Sometimes, I swear, w was more like a third grade teacher. 'I am the decider'. Jesus Christ Almighty--Blesses himself.
When I heard that I went right through the roof.
This is really really good.
Thank you.
June 12, 2009 12:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is really cool. Rec'd.
June 12, 2009 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama spoke over the heads of what fraction of the population?
June 12, 2009 5:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
As you probably know, I am no fan of the current President, but accusing him of operating at a third-grade level seems rather harsh.
June 12, 2009 8:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, the artistry of smooth bullshit on full display.
June 12, 2009 11:07 PM | Reply | Permalink