I am starting to really believe this man will change minds in this country. If he can get guys like Mike Smerconish in PA and AP reporters out there defending him by being honest, then it is a sign that at least some in the media are looking for a return to higher ground and recognizing the country may just be ready to demand it too.

Simply stating the facts and trying to provide the relevant context for them - how unusual for the traditional media. Let's hope it's going to be a continuing trend.

I found this striking, what it said about Hillary Clinton once that context is provided:

His Democratic rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, said she would have left the church if it had been her pastor saying such things. Obama denounced the most inflammatory of Wright's comments, which he said he didn't know about until recently. But he acknowledges, without providing any detail, hearing Wright make other controversial remarks.

This is the reaction any typical politician would have - dodge the bullet by severing his/her connection to the controversial person or group. How clearly different from the approach Obama took. He had the courage to stick with Wright the person, over the long haul and once the media storm hit. And he did it in a principled way, while condemning the inflammatory remarks, actually managing to use the incident to kick off positive change by opening a long-overdue national conversation on race.

How tired, passe, phony, and self-serving Hillary Clinton's reaction looks in comparison - the expectation that he should have abandoned his community instead - that one must always bow to political expediency and political appearances over everything else. She reveals only herself by that reaction, though also possibly her expectation that the media would never do its job and give a more contextualized picture as this article does.

was trying to bring this up on Bill Maher last Friday.

So that things like this can get out before November and we can continue to redeem the good man's image.  i feel it would be the greatest travesty of this election cycle if a good man's reputation was assassinated without reason.  I have listened to all of the sermons that we see the clips from, and i know that it does not matter, but i am white.  Upon listening to them i saw the context he made those remarks in, and i personally have no problem understanding why and what reasons he had for making those comments.

I hope that most people will do the same and come to an understanding of the context, because if they do they will not hate Pastor Wright, they may actually do like i did and listen to more of his sermons because he is such a great speaker.

aisle, and they had on Glenn Beck (on 20 teevees-aaaaaaaaahhhhh!) slamming Rev. Wright. An elderly white couple was watching it (I'm white too, and this is a conservative area).

I cast a glance at the teevee and said to them, "I watched some of that guy's sermons, and he's nothing like that." The couple took interest. I continued that I wondered why the United Church of Christ, which is a mainline denomination, would tolerate having a minister like that. So I watched the whole sermons, I said, and the teevee pundits had taken just little snips out of them and completely changed the meaning.

I was almost surprised when the couple nodded, yes, they knew all too well what the teevee folk did with that kind of thing. They agreed with me!

That taught me that people aren't as stupid as the teevee pundits think they are. Folks are on to them.

defense of Rev Wright a little more strongly.  I'm a huge supporter of Obama and shed tears when he gave his speech in Phillie, but I'd like to hear him be a little more forceful in speaking about what a wonderful church Trinity is and what a good pastor Rev Wright is.  He's gotten his point across that he disagrees with some of the comments but I don't think he's answered the question to most people of why he stayed with the church.  It's time for him to concentrate on the goodness, not the disagreeable comments.  And to take it even further, to explain the context of the statements that were so distorted.  I know he'd like to talk about the whole situation as little as possible, but it's going to continue to be brought up, so I wish he'd give more of an explanation of why he holds Rev Wright in such esteem.

It's what I get for posting so early... ;)