Freedom Isn't Free....

While watching President Bush's speech last night, I had to do something to keep myself from hurling my flipflops at the television. So, I counted the number of times President Bush said some of his favorite words. The grand totals:

Freedom: 21
"September the 11th": 5
Liberty: 2
Nuc-u-lar: 2
Justice: 1

Freedom was clearly the evening's big winner!

This reminded me of a lesson that I learned in 6th grade when I asked my mother to proofread one of my essays. My mother, an English teacher, pointed out that when making transitions, I tended to choose "however" as my transitional word of choice. In this particular five page handwritten essay, I had used "however" 11 times. As a 12 year old, I learned that overusing words makes for a repetitive, silly-sounding essay. Perhaps my mother could teach George (or, more likely, his speechwriting team) a bit about writing technique.