Obama's Press Conference Answers Three Formal Grade-Levels Higher Than Bush's First

So, I just finished comparing the transcript of President Obama's first presidential press conference this evening with the very first one that former President George W. Bush conducted back on February 22, 2001.

I copied each full transcript into separate Word documents. After doing that, I deleted the introductions by both men (since those are largely or fully scripted) and then deleted all reporter questions from the transcripts. What you have left are simply the answers that each president offered, off-the-cuff and unscripted, to all questions. 

Then I ran Word's readability tool.

Guess what?

Bush's answers were spoken at 7th grade level. Obama's at a 10th grade level.

Click here for the actual statistics.

Mark Nickolas is the Managing Editor of Political Base, and this story was from his original post, "Obama Press Conference Answers Three Grade-Levels Higher Than Bush's First"

Comments

[realpolitic]

Obama is clearly intellectually superior to Bush and to many of the experts around him. Bush was hopefully a failed experiment in that ordinariness and lack of knowledge is virtue and patriotic. Many trusted Bush because he did not know much and seemed like the guy next door. When it came to policy decisions he was the guy next door and had no framework to critique the advice he was getting. Sadly, he was an ideologue who surrounded himslef with other ideologues and the results were disastrous for the country. Thankfully, the country has awoken from our stupor and we have turned ourselves over to much better, competent, visionary hands.

[tbmmoe]

Seriously, would you really want the 'guy next door' running the country? I can't believe most Americans really want their next door neighbor in charge of international diplomacy.

[John Dracup]

"...to much better, competent, visionary hands."

“Visionary people are visionary partly because of the very great many things they don't see.”

[CallMeCrazy4Now]

Too bad he got all his facts wrong. Seriously, did you see what factcheck said about that news conference?

[Spud777]

ROFLMAO: When did facts or the truth matter to a republician. What hypocrisy.

[Tamara Too]

I"m glad a lot of commenters are pushing back on this entry. Seriously - having a higher degree of difficulty on a Fleish-Kincaid reading analysis is NOT a good thing. Almost certainly, the increased count is because of the higher number of passive sentences. Using your same wordprocessing software to do a spelling and grammar check, you'll get lots of requests that you fix the passive sentences, because they are harder to understand.

If the goal of communications is to ensure that the listener understands what you're communicating - Bush wins this round. And since we all know that Obama is actually a better communicator - I think we need better measurements than Fleish-Kincaid.

QT (An avid Obama Supporter!)

[ssfahrer]

Since the average American has much closer to a 7th grade reading level than a 10th grade reading level, Bush definitely wins here. Perhaps Obama's "charm" lies in the fact that he talks so "high-falutin'" that no one (except a right wing Republican) realizes that Obama's ultimate aim is to turn the USA (United States of America) into the USSA (United Soviet States of America). Welcome to the USSA, comrade!

[klmebane]

obama wants to turn us into the USSA because he thinks education is good for americans?? is that what you're saying?

[Usama]

Bush was highly educated, moreso than the vast majority of Americans since folks who hold postgraduate degrees are only in the single percentages.
Nonetheless, I suspect that while people may obtain a certain degree of education, they resort to a level of speaking consistent with their thinking. A president has to both think and speak on a high level, but also speak to people on a lower level than his actual thinking.

This has been understood by rulers and leaders of nations for eons. Speaking in metaphors and analogies is a way by which a thought can be expressed to people who might sustain a lower level of thinking. Obama needs to grasp and implement this truth.
Two leaders who failed to grasp this reality.
John Kerry's campaign was an example of the failure to communicate to common people in public. Daily Show mockery of Kerry"s verbiosity exemplifies the contrast.
To another extreme, Bush demostrated a certain level of incompetence in communication publicly, yet communicated on a far lower level (eg. "Im the decider" vs. "the buck stops here").
Unless of course he already thinks on that level.

[Z2221344]

Bush was "highly educated" because he father's connections got him a couple "gentlemen's C's" from Universities. Plus he was in management and business - not exactly "real" university courses.

[PIAPS]

I've read your posts and, okay, a lot of you think he speaks well and you like that. Now he needs to pull together his experience as acommunity organizaer and years in the state senate (up to just 4 years ago) and start to LEAD and stand up to the extreme muslim terrorists that want to kill us.
Can he keep American's safe?
The jury is out.

[neocon666]

Found those WMDs yet?

[PIAPS]

Let's see, 0bama took 10 minutes to respond to a questions with a non-answer.
Bush took 30 seconds and actually gave an answer to the question. Maybe you didn't
like how the answer sounded or what it was, but you got the answer, clear and concise.

[tbmmoe]

Huh? I guess I haven't been listening to the same answers. Bush's 'answers' were as scripted as the questions, but Obama appears to show some depth of understanding of the subject at hand, Since most Americans seemingly have the attention span of a gnat, we are left with contrived 'sound-bite' answers manufactured by political handlers, and designed for effect only. Sounds straight...simple minded is more like it.

[John Dracup]

"Since most Americans seemingly have the attention span of a gnat, we are left with contrived 'sound-bite' answers manufactured by political handlers, and designed for effect only. Sounds straight...simple minded is more like it."

Yes We Can.

[K-Dog76]

Since half the population reads at a 7th-grade level, it sounds like Bush is closer to speaking to everybody than Obama.

http://www.informatics-review.com/FAQ/reading.html


whoa!

[cobobs]

A shame. We must look into our educational system. Those brainiac nations will be getting most of those high value occupations while we contend with something called the "service economy". What on earth is the "service economy"? Massages?

[tbmmoe]

Simple...you only need to know five words - "You want fries with that?"

[peterg76]

It's a reflection of both the speaker and their intended audiences. Obama wants to persuade the entire country; Bush was only interested in talking to blindly loyal Republicans.

[Mendy Hecht]

All that means is that Bush (whose Yale grades were higher than Kerry, remember?) speaks a folksier English.

[ElvinTLim]

If Obama speaks at a higher grade level than Bush - he is either an elite who talks down to the people, or an intellectual who can hold his own. The same statistical analysis leads people with different starting assumptions to different conclusions. But one can also proffer a synthesis of these diverging conclusions.
While I welcome the reintroduction of intellectual subtlety in our presidential discourse, I worry that Obama, like Bush, will settle too quickly on the conclusion that talk (simple or complex) will solve all our problems.
As he is barnstorming the nation now to rally support for his stimulus package, he needs to remember that the power of his rhetoric will only persist as long as his honeymoon lasts. Already, he is learning that campaign talk won't get him as far in government, because for all his campaign promises to bridge the partisan divide, he has failed to bring over more than 3 moderate Republicans on his side. A higher readability score is no guarantee of constructive verbal facility.
For all his intellectual sophistication, even President Obama has resorted to lofty platitudes that when brought down to earth, haven't amounted to very much. Verbal imprecision, slogans, lofty talk - these too are the tools political salesmen. They have been used by those who have attained a high readability score, and by those who have attained low score. These are the the most seductive of rhetorical implements, and they permeate the golden-voiced grenadiers in liberal and conservative America

[wagthedog1001]

"For all his intellectual sophistication, even President Obama has resorted to lofty platitudes that when brought down to earth, haven't amounted to very much. Verbal imprecision, slogans, lofty talk - these too are the tools [of] political salesmen."

The same could easily be said for your post. I'm not sure you said a hell of a lot but it sure was purty.

[tbmmoe]

I think Bush was smitten with the idea that he was a 'Texan', and all Texans need to put on a drawl, and use 'plain' words. Nevermind that it was all an act to hide his patrician yankee roots. Although I really think he really has developed a smallish vocabulary, the phrase, "All hat and no cattle." comes to mind.

[Leniere Miley]

I'm wondering what this tells us that we didn't already know. We didn't need this comparison to know there are significant differences in style, mastery of the language and the issues between Obama and his predecessor. Maybe a test should be conducted on the Americans who voted Bush into office---twice.

[americanalien]

Why is our President so smart? It's not fair to average people. He should apologize for being such a genius. I love him anyhow.

[quiviran]

He should always remember that half of all Americans are below average.

[Fremon]

It is interesting to note that most high school graduates are really at the 10 grade level. So Obama is at least responding at a level that most people would understand. The real insight is that Obama is talking basically down to where he feels he can best be understood and Shrub was trying to reach upward to a higher level then himself.

[FormerReaganite]

I agree with your analysis. Bush tried to "talk up," but that was a
disaster (he minced the big words) Obama, on the other hand, is
smart enough to know that trying to "talk up" is only something
those with a limited intellect might attempt (to impress those with
greater minds? An effort which usually fails)

I've listened carefully to Obama's briefings. Some will criticize him
for the "campaign talk" but keep in mind the president's main job,
besides making decisions and signing bills, is to MOTIVATE. As far
as I've seen, he is doing an excellent job of that. I am not just saying
that because I agree with him; the man does speak quite eloquently.

[wagthedog1001]

As a former language teacher I find this interesting. There are reading levels, writing levels, speaking levels, and listening levels. Each person varies a couple of grade levels; speaking and writing being lower; reading and listening being the higher.

It's obviously easier to understand a higher level than it is to generate the higher level.

Common wisdom suggests newspapers have always been written at the 8th grade level which is about the level the average person resides in speaking and writing. I would say most high school graduates are probably lower than 10th grade reading level but can probably understand people speaking at that level pretty well.

All of this of course is very imprecise. Understanding of nuances of words and concepts begins to break down for average people trying to fully understand higher levels of discourse. This was always my intuition and fear with Mr. Bush.

As I told a friend just the other day: " I'm just glad now that we have a president who is smarter than I am." Generating answers to difficult questions off the cuff at a 10th grade level requires a very high intellect. I doubt most college graduates could do that.

[CarolynPatrick]

Obama is the first President to use a teleprompter during a press conference, so I'm surprised the level was only 10th grade. And I don't think it was a real a press conference but more of a campaign speech. I would say someone should tell him that he won already but then that's what he's been telling the American people for the last two weeks so he obviously knows.

[Principaldad]

Give me a break. Are you actually arguing that Obama somehow managed to use a teleprompter to answer questions? That would be quite a trick, especially since he didn't take prescreened questions (unlike Bush).

Hopefully, you were just saying that he used one during the opening remarks. Just to humor you, I watched the video again and guess what...no teleprompter. Not that it would have been a big deal for the opening remarks. Why bother reading off a card when you can look at your audience (you don't expect the President to spend time memorizing a statement do you?) I am sure that most recent presidents have used teleprompters for virtually all scripted remarks.

[PIAPS]

After the teleprompter speech was over, 0bama started with oooh's and aaahh's and
slow (some say thoughtful) speech pattern that gets a little boring.
By the way, I'm glad the dog show was on the same time as the press conference.

[triplec]

I voted for Obama and have 3 mortgages on my home. I have owned my home for 20 years and really would like to grow old in my home. I took out 2 home equity loans on top of the cash out refi in 2002 because a mortgage broker told me I could refinance out of these loans in 2008. Now I owe 250,000 on my 2nd and 3rd home equity loans and my house is worth less then my 1st mortgage. I am pretty sure I should be able to get my 2 home equity loans eliminated and write down my first mortgage. In addition I am a female and have no children but going to the fertility clinic tomorrow to get some. Afterward I will cancel my insurance and go on medicaid after unemployment runs out. Then I will enroll in some expensive college and get a student loan for a purported advanced degree in "communications" and use it for a downpayment on a new home. During this time I will be getting an SBA loan easily because I am a woman and use this money to start an LLC to get government spending contracts from the new stimulus package. The best part is I will jump in front of the line because not only am I a woman owned LLC but I will get an address for my business in a hubzone area therefore the government will practically be forced to give me the contracts.

[baseballmom]

I am not quite sure what the point of your post is, but make sure you set up a web site so that we can all send you donations!