Barack Obama was just sworn in as President of the US and though he stumbled in repeating his oath, the speech that followed was delivered flawlessly and was widely praised around the web. (Several readers have told us that it wasn’t Obama that stumbled, it was Justice Roberts.) There were quite a few concepts discussed that we suspect haven’t been a part of past inaugural speeches. What words were used most often? We ran the full text of the speech through tag cloud generator Wordle.net for one view of the event, and just for the sake of historical context we ran George W. Bush’s second inaugural speech through as well. Update: After one reader suggested it, we’ve also added word clouds from Bill Clinton’s second inaugural speech and Reagan’s first below. Second update: By reader request, we’ve added Lincoln’s first and second inaugural speeches as well.
The most common words in the Obama and Bush speeches were dramatically different.
Obama’s Speech
If you want to search inside Obama’s speech to see how he used these words, try using the video player below, courtesy of Delve Networks.
Bush’s Speech 2005
Bill Clinton’s Second Inauguration Speech
Ronald Reagan’s First Inaugural Speech
Lincoln’s First
Lincoln’s Second
Feeling Inspired by the Events Today?
See also our post from last night 7 Online Things You Can Do to Help Obama Restore America. Check out the new WhiteHouse.gov, where the face of Presidential technology has changed dramatically as well.
