Reply #25: Good example of what I'm saying.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

if you want to find out what he means when he says "He told Howard U. students that caring about high black incarceration rates was liberal and weepy."

all you have to do is type

Dean "Howard University" liberal weepy

into google and you will get the context of what the poster is talking about.

But the poster is just assuming everyone remembers this thread, which of course is not a good assumption to make. In there you will find a link to the original Washington Post article:

Later, after the applause had subsided, one student asked if Dean would be willing to choose a black running mate. The governor demurred, saying it is too early for him to name possible vice presidential candidates. Another student wondered what Dean might do to lessen the number of African Americans in prison. Dean warned that "we can't get all weepy and liberal about this," but promised to treat substance abuse as a medical issue, rather than a "criminal problem," and to fight racism in sentencing.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A41684-2003Oct3¬Found=true

but really that changes nothing, seeing it 'in context' in the original article. Reading the back and forth discussion you and that poster had in that thread, you both would make the same arguments anyway. It isn't a matter of someone dishonestly quoting out of context, it is a simple difference of interpretation. We all read the same thing and ascribe different meanings to it. Then we talk about it. That's debate. And in this particular debate I hold to my position that accusing someone of 'quoting out of context' is nothing more than a weak, ad hominem argument because when it actually is true, demonstrating such is much more effective than complaining about it.