US troops will pull out of Afghanistan in the tens of thousands. Photo by Flickr user San Diego Air & Space Museum Archives.
Hours after President Obama’s primetime address to the nation, the web is whirring in response to the Commander-in-Chief’s order that 33,000 American troops will withdraw from Afghanistan by next summer. The remarks also featured Pakistan, Iraq and the uprisings in Egypt and the Arab world, and concluded a domestic plea for unity, declaring that “it is time to focus on nation building here at home.”
Politico was no stranger to the coverage, reporting the speech and its aftermath from various viewpoints with social media and multimedia.
- Directly from the homepage, over a dozen articles were related to the speech. Interesting pieces noted the absence of General Petraeus from the president’s remarks and the theme of Osama bin Laden, the subject of the president’s previous speech from the White House.
- The GOP’s response was also heard, including Speaker of the House John Boehner and several 2012 presidential candidates. The Politico Page 2012 broke down the reactions by candidate, placing Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney on the right and Jon Huntsman on the left.
- Other Politico Pages weighed in, too. 44 provided the liberal and conservative perspectives, by Rep. Barney Frank and Sen. John McCain, respectively. Arena, the Politico debate page that will be discussed in the next Page Watch posed the question, “Can Obama split the difference in Afghanistan?”
Screenshot from Politico's initial lead after his Afghanistan address.
- In terms of video, President Obama’s Afghanistan address may be viewed in full, as well a two-minute summary of various pundits’ reactions (starting with a confused Rachel Maddow and third-person Sen. Lindsey Graham.
- Politico was also a-Twitter in social media. The Politico account tweeted four times during the address, then retweeted five reactions using the hashtag #reax. 10 articles related to the speech were tweeted after that, with other articles sprinkled in as well.
Overall, Politico was all over this important address that may not have been as dramatic as bin Laden’s death, but significant nevertheless. Tune in at 12 PM EST for the reveal of the word cloud of his thirteen-minute speech, created by Wordle, and further analysis of the body of text itself. Thanks for reading!
