There are tons of tag clouds (aka word clouds) out there, lurking in the widgets column of blogs or springing up after a Presidential inauguration. While you could argue that ubiquity has watered down the effectiveness of this method of visualizing information, with the proper data, the tag cloud can still pack a punch.
Case in point, the site Capitol Words (a project of the Sunlight Foundation) which ranks the frequency of words used by Congress (per the Congressional Record) on a daily basis. You can search by timeframe, state or elected official and compare words. No surprise, "health" has been the most commonly used word for the past week, but would you have guessed it also takes the top spot for the entire year?
Other discoveries:
Gregory Meeks (D-NY) lives up to his name as one of the quietest law makers.
Joe Lieberman (I-CT) seems to be working in a parallel universe, as his top 30 words from the past year don't include "health," "care" or "insurance," which are in the top 30 for all of Congress during the same time period.
California is the most verbose state, thanks to the triple whammy of David Dreier (R), Dianne Feinstein (D) and Barbara Boxer (D).
For more: www.capitolwords.org