You can only hope that this year's presidential campaign has not set a standard for future political reporting at the national or local level.

Yes, there has been plenty of distinguished reporting, if you search for it. But be honest: What first comes to mind when you think of the three remaining standing candidates?

McCain is old? Clinton is a self-invented soul who makes up fables about her bravery as first lady? Obama worships with a rabid black pastor and looks down his nose at bitter hicks who fall back on guns and religion to get them through life?

Now, the first line of blame has to go to the candidates, or at least the campaigns, which use every opportunity to make something of the other camp's slip-ups.

But the media shares guilt for what, in the words of a recent New Yorker article, might be called "saturation gaffe coverage."

Because the fight is still on between Obama and Clinton, that's where the spotlight rests. Gaffes count because there really aren't a lot of substantive policy differences between the two.

At the moment, it is front-runner Obama's turn.

The viral distribution of incendiary comments by Obama pastor Jeremiah Wright is a classic example. Now, I don't think Obama did himself any great justice with his suggestion that, gee, he didn't know the Rev. Wright was saying such things. But, as Wright himself said, that's politics.

Obama had to disassociate himself from the comments — as presented — over and over again by Wright himself and on right-wing blog sites.

But as anyone who took the time to listen to Wright's interview with Bill Moyers on PBS the other night knows, it's clear Wright's thoughts are not anything close to how they have been portrayed. Wright was making profound points about the state of race in America and about America's increasingly troubled role in the world.

(To see the interview, go to www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/index-flash.html.)

But there doesn't appear to be any room in the campaign for this kind of nuance. Obama tried, with his well-received speech on race. But the whirlwind consumes the campaign. And as a candidate attempting to appeal to the great American middle, Obama doesn't have time to let this nuance sort itself out.

He has to, as has become apparent in the past couple of days, vigorously disassociate himself from Wright and Wright's words.

It's a shame, just as it is when Clinton must repeatedly parse back her remarks about her bravery in Bosnia. There is a much deeper conversation to be had here, but we're not getting it.

Jerry Burris' column appears Wednesdays in this space. See his blog at blogs.honoluluadvertiser.com/akamaipolitics. Reach him at jrryburris@yahoo.com.