Palin, Joe Wilson, bogus “racism” charges, anything to distract from the Dem health care debacle and real issues like Iran's nukes, what might be sought among the G-20 and between the USA and the Europeans with regulation and taxes, or to address “global warming” or “climate change,” etc..

Distractions, distractions — such petty distractions…

(Of course, there are plenty of us who aren't surprised to learn about Iran's second facility, too, but the sitters and crawlers obscessed with Palin aren't in a position to change from walking to running.)

I guess I am just wondering aloud, whether the crime is more egregious in the general or the specific. Obama has been called worse things in a more specific realm as well as the more general. We cannot in modern language include direct racist reference, so we load our language up otherwise and throw other kinds of insults at him. We always knew in his tense delivery, that Clinton meant more than the mere words when he referenced Monica as “that woman.”

In general, these crimes seem petty when compared to the historical lack of apology for the interment of the Japanese (apology 40 years late), for the lies of the Bush Admin., for torturing people, for killing innocent people, etc. etc.

Maybe you are just talking about the guiding rules of journalism, where it is necessary to maintain propriety even when the instinct makes a mistake. As for the rest of us, if we all lined up we would likely have to encircle the earth several times to admit our mistakes and apologize.