How often does Bush give speeches to the general public?

September 1, 2005 7:16 PM

Anyone know where I could find the numbers relating to how often Bush gives speeches in front of the conservative choir (i.e., right-wing and/or fundraising groups) AND Military audiences VERSUS, say, actual "public" speeches to regular folks?

It seems like 99% of the time he's speaking to some clone army of a military crowd ("Clap Now, Private!") or like-minded chicken-hawks. I actually can't remember ever having seen him speak to the public in a public setting--course, for all I know, maybe all presidents do this for security reasons. (I'll even count the "public" speeches where people were escorted out for wearing messages that implied they hadn't tasted the kool-aid as being public.)

posted by whatgorilla to Law & Government (7 answers total)

I can't remember one to regular folks, unless you count Inaugurations. He must have done some pre-9/11 i guess. I'd search the white house archives of speeches, and then search google with the dates/places.
posted by amberglow at 9:01 PM on September 1, 2005

Well, you could do it as a ratio. If you make it (preaching-to-the-choir)/(regular-folks), though, it blows up to infinity.
posted by Doohickie at 1:41 AM on September 2, 2005

Bush has never spoken to a group that wasn't pre-vetted and only-conservatives-allowed. Nobody with liberal opinions is allowed within shouting distance of him. Seriously. Here's the closest I've seen in 4.5 years. The VFW is obviously deeply conservative as a whole so perhaps they weren't individually vetted. Nor was the Australian parliament, which is why Bush cancelled his plans to speak to the British parliament.

Bush prefers military audiences. Anyone heckling him there is subject to a year in prison.

And no, no president has ever done this before. Tickets to Clinton's speeches were routinely given out first-come, first-served and he and all previous presidents have been occasionally heckled.
posted by jellicle at 4:14 AM on September 2, 2005

Does any President really give that many speeches when he's not trying to get elected? Even Bush only does one or two a month, unless they're trying to push a specific initiative.
posted by smackfu at 9:36 AM on September 2, 2005

Nor was the Australian parliament, which is why Bush cancelled his plans to speak to the British parliament.

Same why he cancelled the opportunity to speak to the Canadian House of Commons.

You know, I'm constantly aghast at the low level of accountability the U.S. President is held to. Any other modern democracy would be astounded that they couldn't ask their leader direct questions.
posted by Kickstart70 at 9:57 AM on September 2, 2005

Even if you find a way to quantify this, what can you do with this weak-sauce statistic unless you find a way to create useful context, by generating a lot of other similar statistics for other US Presidents/foreign leaders/etc.
posted by mosch at 9:26 AM on September 3, 2005

Response by poster: Mosch, that's what i was hoping to do.
posted by whatgorilla at 7:33 PM on September 5, 2005