Meme: "A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that gets transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another."

After Barack Obama gave a speech last week suggesting that many Americans who live in small towns and rural areas are "bitter" and "frustrated", the presidential hopeful received a wrathful response.

In his speech, Obama described the people in our country who have long faced economic, educational, and professional adversities. According to a transcript published on the Huffington Post, he told his San Francisco audience of fundraisers that "it's not surprising, then, that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who are not like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment, as a way to explain their frustrations."

Senators Clinton and McCain, for one of the first times since this race for the nomination began, seemed united by a common goal: to make Obama appear against the hard-working men and women of middle-America.

"I was taken aback by the demeaning remarks Senator Obama made about people in small-town America," Senator Clinton told the press. "Senator Obama's remarks were elitist and out of touch. They are not reflective of the values and beliefs of Americans."

In his defense, Obama held fast: "No, I am in touch," he said. "I know exactly what's going on. People are fed-up."

Finally, in what was no doubt a political move more than a sincere retraction, he conceded on Saturday that his remarks had been ill-chosen.

Now, depending on where you fall in the Clinton/Obama divide, this story is likely to do one of two things: either fuel your fire against Obama, or frustrate you further about the circus that this race for the democratic nomination has become.

Obama's comment quickly became a meme .

The media picked it up, and Clinton and McCain both pounced with great urgency on Obama, citing portions of his comments in their attacks.

But like the notion that John Kerry was a "flip-flopper", Howard Dean's primal scream, and Bill Clinton's assertion that he "didn't inhale," Obama's comments need to be considered in context, and with a degree of skepticism toward how the media reports on them.