Analysis · Speech on a bill · beta

Jason Crow

380 words · 28 sentences · 38 clauses

Statement grade
B+
Average 82 / 100
A score under 50 is red. Choose a measurement to see where it lost points and why; choose it again to clear.
Greeting 6%Thanks 11%Claims 35%Reasoning 33%Positioning 2%Procedure 6%Anecdote 7%

This view breaks the statement into its steps and names what each one does.

Mr. Speaker, Greeting · 24 wordsI join all Americans, my colleagues, and Chairman Mast in mourning those lost who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our Nation, once again.Greeting Thanks · 41 wordsI honor greatly the service of the chairman. We served in these wars together.1 He knows sacrifice. He, in fact, sacrificed and gave more than I did. He also deeply understands the threats. He was right when he outlined those threats.Thanks Claims · 29 wordsIran is a malignant regime. Iran does and has posed a threat to Americans, as has North Korea, Russia, and many other regimes, countries, and terrorists around the world. Reasoning · 77 wordsThe important thing is not just to recognize the threat and say if there is a threat that we automatically have to go to war, because that is the start of the analysis, not the end of it. The next questions and the important questions are what do we do about it. Do we go to war? Do we assemble a coalition? Do we use sanctions? Do we use soft power? How do we meet that threat? Claims · 53 wordsIt is a fact that in the 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan we stopped asking that essential question and just assumed that war was the answer and would solve it.Unearned certainty That is what led us to 20-plus years, trillions of dollars, 3and thousands of American lives lost for wars that ended poorly.4 Positioning · 8 wordsI am unwilling to not learn that lesson.Positioning Procedure · 10 wordsI want to be really clear about Iran, in particular.Procedure Claims · 34 wordsThere was no intelligence showing that Iran was proceeding with the development of a nuclear weapon.2 If there was intelligence, we would be having a different discussion here. There wasn’t, and that fact matters. Procedure · 13 wordsThat leads us to the second part of it: What do we do?Procedure Reasoning · 13 wordsHow do we meet this threat that has been posed for 40-plus years? Claims · 18 wordsWhat is clear is that Americans are done with an endless cycle of conflict in the Middle East.Unearned certainty Anecdote · 26 wordsWhen I was in Afghanistan, our adversaries, the enemies that we fought, would often say: Americans have all the clocks, but we have all the time.Anecdote Reasoning · 34 wordsThey simply want to wait us out knowing that we will just spend more money, have more combat deployments, that we will just continue to do it year after year until we wear out.

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