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This blog post makes an important point:
“MoveOn.org can decide to make political hay out of McCain’s gaffe, but we all pay a price for it. We legitimize taking moments out of context and seizing upon the least sympathetic interpretation. We tell politicians that they’d better stay on message 24/7 and never stick their arms outside their cage. We exult in a smarmy self-congratulations as if none of our moments would make us look bad if posted to YouTube.”

Jokes taken out of context, the price of haircuts, and malapropisms are distractions that lower the level of discourse when time is spent on them when it should be spent on actual issues.