This seemed lame when I first saw it but, upon playing with the Presidential Tag Cloud, I realized this is a far more interesting, far more powerful tool than I thought. If you have a reasonably good grasp on American history, this should provide a few “aha!” moments and chuckles.

As you roll the slider from left to right, covering each presidential period, you see certain words come into focus and fade. In the early days, Britain and War were very prominent, for the obvious reasons. Once most of our troubles with Britan subsided after the war of 1812 however, focus turned to what has been called “The Indian Situation”. Andrew Jackson’s speeches are heavily laden with references to the Indians.

There are whole periods during which no words seem to jump out, then Kennedy is shot and, boom, Vietnam dominates the presidential speeches and that nasty word “War” rears its ugly head again.

Here’s what really grabs me, though. During the Clinton years, the speeches are dominated by the words “Families”, “Economy” and “Education”. Then you jump into the George W. Bush years and, boom, it’s all “Iraq”, “Terrorists”, “War” and, ironically, “Freedom”.

Looking at these tag clouds is like getting a glimpse into the abstract presidential mind during all of these time periods. What were their administrations obsessing about? It’s right there in big, bright white letters. I’ve never been a big fan of the tag cloud concept - I feel it’s frequently overused, particularly when folks try to use it as a navigational tool - but this was a fascinating use for this technology that provided some genuine insight.