To the editor of the Chattanooga Times-Free Press:

The Free Press editorial, “Troubling Speech in Berlin” is misleading in that Sen. Obama’s words are taken out of context in an attempt to paint him as a bugbear of conservatives. In reading the entire speech, it is clear that the “walls” Sen. Obama mentions are metaphorical. His real message is in the paragraph just before the one the editor tears apart to find “troubling” words.

Here are Sen. Obama’s unedited words: “Partnership and cooperation among nations is not a choice; it is the one way, the only way, to protect our common security and advance our common humanity. That is why the greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another. The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.”

The Free Press editor does his readers a disservice by not including the context of remarks made by candidates he opposes. Thus, we should always “check with the source.”