Last Friday, at a memorial for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Senator John McCain was nearly booed off-stage when he admitted to having voted against a national holiday for Dr. King when President Ronald Reagan proposed one in 1983. In fact, Arizona was one of the last states to acknowledge it as such, finally doing so in the late 1990s. And while reports give some attention to the fact that McCain apologized, they are simply too short to provide the whole story. This is the section of the speech that most of the media has focused on:

But the rest of his speech might have come from straight from Senator Obama. He stresses equality, liberty, the necessity of "cutting off the chain of hate and evil" -- and to achieve it all through love. Only when he invokes Christianity does he reveal his more characteristic Republican persona. Most of all, the speech is eloquent and compelling.

Regardless of how you or I might feel about McCain overall, this is a telling case of how the media too often emphasizes sensationalism over information. The headlines imply that McCain stood up and said, "I am against this!" In fact, he not only led up to his admission with long, heartfelt praise of Dr. King; he also admitted promptly that he had been wrong in 1983.

Here is the rest: