Obama's Pastor, reverend Wright, says quite a number of vitriolic inflammatory things his sermons. Wright and his defenders insist his words were "taken out of context". How? That part wasn't so clear.

(Putting it in context didn't help either — most people (I certainly did) heard the original context the first time it was first aired. Yup. Still "God Damn America" because America sucks, and deserved 9/11. I heard far more context than that, and noticed things — like Wright saying Israel was behind 9/11 — which still, to this day, haven't received sufficient coverage. In later TV appearances, Wright left no room for doubt, utterly embarrassing his defenders.)

Obama's SCOTUS nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, said that a "wise Latina" would have richer experiences and more knowledge than a white guy, and, once again, defenders insisted she had been taken out of context, despite, once again, not knowing what this larger "context" was actually supposed to be. ("[Howard Dean] immediately conceded that he himself had not actually read the full context of the speech.... 'I haven't read the piece, but I know it was taken out of context....'") Later, it emerged that Sotomayor had used the line several times, and voiced the same sentiment in several different ways.

Recently, we saw a deluge of e-mails and software related to climate research, which demonstrated, in letter after letter, that a small, influential group of scientists had chosen a particular conclusion and were trying to find ways to bolster it — and hide evidence of what they'd done. Once again, their defenders said the information was taken out of context, without specifying what the larger context was supposed to be. (Gore suggested, for example, the e-mails were meant to be "ironic." How does a 'scientist' deleting data to avoid a FOIA request qualify as "ironic"? Intentionally, I mean.)

And just a few days ago, the top official for keeping the US safe, Janet Napolitano, breaktakingly insisted that the 9/11 hijackers had entered from Canada, and insisted that "the system worked", despite the fact that the latest attempt — which demonstrated the blindness of "the system" (his father, Nigeria's most prominent banker, had warned the US about his intentions, and we basically ignored the information) — had been foiled instead by luck and a Dutch citizen.

And what's the response? Of course: she now says her words were taken out of context.

This is nothing new. For years, I've sought out talk show hosts who will seriously (I don't mean the yell-fests we see on cable, but a fair discussion with time given to get into depth) engage opinions from the the opposite political side. When the left-leaning candidate does poorly, callers will call in insisting that it wasn't a fair debate: the left-leaning participant wasn't a fair representative of the left (or atheism, or whatever), wasn't given enough time, etc. In essence, the complaint is that they felt their own views were somehow taken out of context. This is said even when the person says their views, directly, and then sees them revealed to be harmful.

Having seen this defense used so often, I don't think this is mere conscious sophistry. (Though it's certainly unconscious sophistry.) I think what's going on, in many cases, is that the person is saying: "I'm a good person. I'm on the good side of things. What I believe is good. What 'my people' believe and said is good. We're the 'good guys'" — and "out of context" simply means: "You made us look bad." (Howard Dean was absolutely sure Sotomayor's words were taken "out of context" despite admitting he had no idea what the context was.) It's the inner three-year-old screaming that he couldn't possibly have lost the game because in a 'fair' universe (as he imagines it) he must always win. Someone else must have cheated!

Of course, we didn't make you look bad: Napolitano wasn't quoted of out context. Nor was Sotomayor nor Wright. Nor the climate memos. Nor the truckload of other bizarre stances espoused by Obama's nominees. The problem is that they were quoted accurately, that what they were quoted as saying does actually reflect their view of the world, and it is embarrassing, ill-informed, extreme, hateful, etc.

But you're the 'good guys', the 'smart guys', the 'pro-science guys' and so this just can't be.