She was a huge star, and for being funny, not because she was not terribly attractive (I hesitate to say ugly - certainly she was no less attractive for a woman than John Belushi and Dan Akroyd and Garrett Morris were for men). Phyllis Diller was pretty big in her day too, but maybe as much for being ugly and funny as just funny.

I'd say Sarah Silverman's whole career is 'ugly comedy' - she's not ugly, herself, but her act is mean to induce cringing, and she does nothing to play up her looks or sexiness.

Carol Burnett was not ugly. She frequently mugged for the camera in a way that grossly exaggerated her looks (the character Eunice comes to mind), but she wasn't ugly. Neither were Harvey Korman and Tim Conway. They were just ordinary looking people, not obsessed with how attractive and sexy they looked every minute.

...are equally deserving of being judged for the totality of their acts, not just a few unfortunate comments that reflect more fear than belief.

You could argue that the grandmother's fear of other dark-skinned men is MORE hurtful. After all, she had a living, breathing example of how wrong it was to paint an entire race with the same fear-based paintbrush. And yet she raised her grandson - a fairly selfless act - so maybe her comments about race should be taken in the context of her nevertheless putting aside her prejudices to raise her grandson with love and honesty.

You could also argue that the works of Obama's pastor show him to be a kind and giving person who devotes his time as much to works as words, and that any comments about race that he made should be taken into the context of a life that has clearly been more about service than fear-mongering stereotyping of whites.

Obama loves his pastor, and his grandmother. He has refused to reject them on the basis of some of the racist things they've said or did, because he knows them well and therefore has the werewithal to judge them in the context of their lives and works, not just for a few random sentences. His speech was an attempt to let us see them as he sees them, not compare which was is more racist, which one has been more hurtful, which one is more deserving of a 'pass'.

We live in a sound bite world, and I suppose it's inevitable that people start to make actual judgements about entire lives and works based on a single sound bite. It's intellectually lazy. Every person reading this board could probably have a quote trotted out that would suggest beliefs, ethics, morality that simply aren't the case...every one of us could easily lose friends, families and jobs if something we said were taken out of context and blown up to represent the totality of our lives, thoughts and actions.

Give the guy a break. He is not responsible for the actions or deeds of his pastor, nor his grandmother. He simply explained the role these people have had in his lives, and how he refuses to judge them for isolated instances of racism that do not reflect who he knows them to really be. If there is one thing to take away from his speech, it is that we should all follow that example - only then can we hope to make racism a thing of the past.