If the anticipation for next week’s State of the Union Speech is just killing you, and you’ve already watched the pregame show and bought the T-shirt, you might spend some time playing with this funky little widget that breaks down each SotU address, giving the grade-level at which the prose is pitched and showing the relative frequency and distribution of the most characteristic, distinguishing words it contains, a bit like the imaginary novel-analysis program in If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler. The companion essay b y the program’s author is also worth a look. I don’t know if I’m quite as panicked as he is over the decline in the level of the speeches, or especially worried that this signals the death of “public sphere as the ground of a competitive exchange of argument and counter argument.” It’s no real surprise if the annual messages were more complex when (1) their intended audience was understood to Congress more than the general public, and (2) they were intended to be read, not listened to in a live performance by the president. In any event, though, an interesting way of looking at the history of the address.