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"And so America has gone on the offense across the world. And here are some of the results. We’ve captured or killed many of the most significant al Qaeda members and associates. We’ve killed al Qaeda’s most visible and aggressive leader to emerge after 9/11, the terrorist Zarqawi in Iraq. We’ve kept the terrorists from achieving their key goal, to overthrow governments across the broader Middle East and to seize control. Instead, the governments they targeted — such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia — have become some of our most valuable allies in the war on terror. These countries are joined by the largest coalition in the history of warfare — more than 90 nations determined to find the terrorists, to dry up their funds, to stop their plots, and to bring them to justice."
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Some of us find Bush’s speeches impossible to watch, and can only barely tolearate reading them on the Internet. The way I’ve adapted is to score them, paragraph by paragraph. I mark each paragraph for occurrences of these phrases and total them up at the end. I try to be pristine in my grading. For War on Terror and War in Iraq I require exact words. For 911, I accept all clear references [911, 9/11, September 11th, the attack on the Twin Trade Towers, al Qaeda’s attack, etc.]. Notice, he gets no credit for Zarqawi in Iraq. It helps keep my mind occupied and I’m usually able to get to the end of the speech.
Here’s a scorecard to use if you too need a diversion:
A simpler variation is to simply count the occurrences of each of the three phrases in the whole speech and keep up with the speeches.
I have a few questions. First, does he ever say, “War in Iraq?” Secondly, is this game merely a diversion, or does the total have some meaning? As the total goes up or down from speech to speech, what am I to make of that?