Obama's Mideast speeches: a word cloud comparison

U.S. President Barack Obama gave a highly anticipated speech Thursdayin which he expressed the broad strokes of the U.S.reactionto the wave of popular uprisings that continue to spread throughout the Middle East and North Africa. Two years ago, on June 4, 2009,he gave asimilarly significant speech on U.S. Middle East policy at Cairo University, parts of which, inretrospect,seem to almostforeshadow the protests that would erupt in January 2011 and thetoppling of some of the leaders who tried to resist them.

Below are word clouds, or wordles, comparing the 50 most frequently used words in the two speeches (not including common words such as "the").

May 19, 2011, Washington, D.C.

June 4, 2009, Cairo