I love how this line of yours:

specifically saying that he would have left the church if not for Wright's retirement.

Is directly followed by this line:

"Had the reverend not retired, and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws, then I wouldn't have felt comfortable staying at the church,"

I mean, come on. Wright is obviously a millstone around Obama's neck, he's a bit of a kook, and even though it's in Obama's best interest to distance himself from Wright, he really specifically did not say, as your headline reads, "I Wouldn't Have Stayed With Church If Wright Wasn't Retiring." There were, like, qualifications after it, and like, stuff.

You can do better.

I really think Obama ought to just let this thing die, or at least not say much more about it. The more he says, the more material he gives his opponents to root through and try to find that gold nugget to use in smears. With attention starting to focus away from Obama, he needn't encourage the spotlight to return to him on this matter.

Lame. This is a total double standard. Lets see Hillary account for everything Billy Graham has ever said, and McCain explain everything Hage has ever said.

Until then, the media is being totally unfair with this.

(Oh, I see it's only wrong when a pastor is a crazy liberal, it's normal and expected when a pastor is a crazy conservative)

I want to add my objection to the headline for this article. It is false. Often people read or retain only what the headline says. It is possible to write intriguing headlines without, well -- lying.

Uh oh, is Condoleezza Rice race-baiting?

Someone get Hillary and Sean Hannity on the phone, stat!

You know, I grew up a catholic on the north side of Chicago. During much of that time we had, as our lead priest, a man who would say rather off the wall things at times. Things like "In America we had the world's first concentration camps, we just call them indian reservations". There were other things, but on whole he was a really great man.
I no more believed that concentration camp/reservation line than Barack beleives that the the US government invented AIDS to commit genocide. What people have to understand is that I, like Barack, can look at the entire make up of what our religious leaders and elders have to offer: community, inspiration and rebukes for our communities and larger society and at the same time set aside the anger and divisiveness that sometimes come with them.
I threw in early for Barack because unlike many people in this country, those of us in the Chicago area have had a longer look at him. In a little less than ten years or so, I've come to see him as a decent, reasonable, honorable man who I believe is going to tackle the problems outside the depressing Rove/Clinton template of politics. I'm not voting for the man to be a saint, I just want a new way forward, and he's the first viable candidate in a long time to give me hope.

I'm with everyone else who thinks the headline is misleading.

Obamam should just STFU on the wright issue. Idiot. Why can't he just say, "I believe I have addressed the issue of my pastor to the best of my ability and would like to focus only on the more important issues we face. Next question, please" Let the fuc..ing journos eat that.

Look at Hillary stonewalling legit questions about her tax returns and other personal stuff.

Greg, your title and description distort what Obama actually said.

Please fix.

I agree that the headline is misleading -- but not that much. This is the first time in a long time that BHO has said something I wish he hadn't.

Regardless if BO supports Wright or not it will be of little help to him in the general election. He won't win! Hil's people will not vote for him no more that his people will vote for Hil. Unfortunately, the Repubs win. You can say all you want but it's just you all alone on election day and you are your only witness.

Really, Hillary Clinton wrote a book about Billy Graham and titled it after one of his sermons? I can't seem to find that book on Amazon.com but would life to read it. Please tell us more about Hillary's devotion to Billy Graham

I've got one tiny request.

Can we stop using that tiresome "under the bus" expression? Too much to expect the other blogs to stop it, but we're erudite here - we can think of other metaphors.

Obama's PREACHER says something offensive (and it isn't really offensive at all if you hear it in context)...

Yeah. Right. Obama just needs to let voters know that they wouldn't be offended by it if they "heard it in context"? That's a real winning message.

He didn't just say "if Wright didn't retire", he basically said "if Wright didn't retire and didn't apologize".

You better believe that if Wright remained pastor and refused to offer a Falwell/Robertson type apology for his inflammatory comments, Obama would be gone. That's the truth. But I don't like the headline characterization that Obama would leave the church no matter what if Wright was still there.

How's this, guys:

"Obama frames his relationship with his church and his pastor in yet another ambiguous fashion, giving his intellectual, erudite followers still more grist for defending him, characterizing his remarks in additional shades of nuance or explaining how it doesn't matter"

Perhaps the comment is too sophisticated for most people. It contains a lot of clauses, after all. Here's what he said in simpler terms:

*IF* Obama had known about the incendiary comments Wright made
*AND* Wright didn't subsequently retire
*AND* Wright refused to apologize for his remarks
*THEN* Obama would feel enough discomfort to leave the church.

=If(A=B=C,D)