Keeping It Simple: Obama speaks to his base

[thundley4]

Keeping It Simple: Obama Records 2nd Lowest Flesch-Kincaid SOTU Grade Level Score Since FDR

President's 2011 SOTU speech was written at more than a half a grade level lower than 2010's score, which was the 4th lowest in 75+ years

Although praised by many for the tone he struck in delivering his 2011 State of the Union address, many conservatives criticized Barack Obama's speech for being high on rhetoric and short on substance.

As it turns out, Obama's speech was historically short - both in sentence structure and the words he used.

Last year, Smart Politics calculated that Obama's debut State of the Union Address tallied one of the lowest Flesch-Kincaid scores in modern political history, by constructing his speech with sentences that were approximately 20 percent shorter in length than the nearly 70 oral addresses given since Franklin Roosevelt.

The Flesch-Kincaid test is designed to assess the readability level of written text, with a formula that translates the score to a U.S. grade level. Longer sentences and sentences utilizing words with more syllables produce higher scores. Shorter sentences and sentences incorporating more monosyllabic words yield lower scores.

*snip*

By contrast - the speeches delivered by two of the most popular presidents in Republican circles in recent generations - Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush - recorded average scores of 10.3 and 10.4 respectively - nearly two full grade levels higher than Obama.

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[true_blood]

In other words, he delivered another FAIL.
It would be seriously funny if it weren't for our Country being in serious trouble with him in the White Mosque.