Motus Mentis

I’ve just watched President Obama’s press conference on CNN. It was not an easy night for him. The focus was on the economy; in fact there was not a single mention of Iraq or Afghanistan. To illustrate this, the producers at CNN used a cute little application that generates what are called “word clouds” — those graphic displays that show words in different sizes according to the frequency of their appearance in a given block of text. We’ve all seen them by now, and lots of blogs feature them prominently. This site, Wordle.net, is apparently where CNN got theirs.

Having lambasted President Bush for his many verbal boo-boos, it would be unfair of me to spare Mr. Obama similar scrutiny. I will confess that I winced this evening to hear him say “comprised of”, and if his approval ratings sag a bit after tonight’s speech, I think we need look no further to understand why.