State of Union 9.5% less laudable than in 2002!

Those of you who have been following the media closely as of late will perhaps have seen various talking heads discussing the ins-and-outs of what W. said during his speech on Tuesday. These men and women have completed missed the point. If polling has taught us anything, it is that every aspect of the political system worth discussing is easily quantifiable. With this in mind, I, Matteus Von Mustard, present you with the applause-per-minute method of dissecting the State of the Union address. I would like to extend a hearty thank-you to the Whitehouse.gov website for including all instances of applause in their transcript of the speech.

In this week's State of the Union Address W. received applause only 66 times. In 2002, congress applauded him a stunning 73 times. Some might argue that the difference is not so great. However if we remember that even a trained monkey could say something laudable once per minute, we realize that only those applause in excess of one per minute are worth noting. This year Bush received applause at a rate of only 1.269 times per minute, while in 2002 he was applauded 1.604 times per minute!
These means that the rate of secondary applause per minute in this year's address was only of 44.5% what it was in 2002.

In 2002 Bush delivered a shorter speech and still received more applause. He sometimes even received applause for mere sentence fragments because the things he was saying were so mind-blowing laudable that congress couldn't wait until he got to a period. In 2002 Bush was really on top of his game and received applause for such seemingly unlaudable statements as:

--"My economic security plan can be summed up in one word: jobs. (Applause.)"
It seems to me plans ought to be significantly more complicated than this. However congress proved me wrong.

--"Last year, some in this hall thought my tax relief plan was too small; some thought it was too big. (Applause.)" I'm assuming that, at this point, Congress was applauding the value of a healthy difference of opinion in democracy.

--"Our budget will run a deficit that will be small and short-term, so long as Congress restrains spending and acts in a fiscally responsible manner. (Applause.)" What's better than a budget deficit? NOTHING! HUZZAH!

--"My budget includes the largest increase in defense spending in two decades -- because while the price of freedom and security is high, it is never too high. Whatever it costs to defend our country, we will pay. (Applause.)" PAYING! YES! WE LOVE IT!!! MAKE US PAY BUSHIE, MAKE US PAY!

In 2002, Mr. Bush also received applause for taking decisive action when other countries were "timid in the face of terror," for the existence of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay and for his belief that September 11th "brought out the best in America."

This year, the applause were more measured and in my next post I will take a look at why.