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Who says there's no humor in politics? Obama communications director Robert Gibbs went on ABC's This Week today, and in one of the best bits of deadpan comedy seen since Buster Keaton, actually said that Barack Obama's decision to quit the Trinity United Church of Christ was "not political." GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: In Philadelphia, just in April, Senator Obama said of Reverend Wright "I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community." Now he's cut all ties to Reverend Wright, and left his church. What is it a mistake to wait this long? ROBERT GIBBS: No, George....

Sunday, Father Michael Pfleger addressed his congregation about the controversy surrounding his sermon for the first time. He told the congregation he's received more than 3,000 threatening emails – some calling for his death. The messages caused the church to beef up security for Sunday's services, as CBS 2's Pamela Jones reports. "YouTube and headlines and soundbites can now and have now become an instrument that creates the story rather than tells the story," said St. Sabina Church's Father Michael Pfleger. Pfleger sounded off giving a sermon entitled "Beyond YouTube," chiding the media and the Web site, saying the clip...

Obama also accepts testimonial from 9/11 conspiracy theorist who equated 9/11 to the Reichstag Fire Please view Priest Michael Pfleger Campaigns for Obama at Trinity United at YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGgRaApkcP8). Pay attention not only to what Michael Pfleger is saying, but also to the audience’s reaction to “There were a whole lot of white people crying.” (Two screen shots appear below.) They didn’t get up and walk out in disgust. They didn’t sit in embarrassed silence while pretending not to hear. They applauded wildly, and many stood up to give “There were a whole lot of white people crying” a standing...

End of days Pittsburgh Tribune-Review By Salena Zito As Hillary Clinton sprints to the end of the primary finish line and Obama crawls in the dust behind her -- it will be her rival, Barack Obama, that will declare himself the winner by the end of the week. And there does not appear to be a superdelegate within sight that is willing to consider anything other than getting in line with all of the other cool kids.

A source close to the Obama campaign tells The Brody File that Barack Obama and Michelle Obama approached Trinity United Church Pastor Otis Moss III a couple months ago to discuss whether Obama should remain with the church. This person tells me that Senator Obama asked pastor Moss how the controversy was affecting the church and the discussion focused in on what would be best for the church and best for Obama. The initial conversation took place after the Jeremiah Wright sermons became widespread public knowledge but before Jeremiah Wright's speech to the National Press Club. Reverend Moss knew about...

Spokesman: Obama Decision to Leave Church Not Politically Motivated June 01, 2008 12:58 PM ABC News' Ben Newman reports: Sen. Barack Obama's decision to cut ties with Trinity United Church of Christ was not politically motivated, Obama's communications director Robert Gibbs asserted this morning. "I think what [decision] Barack Obama made in the past few days is a deeply personal, not political decision," Gibbs said in an exclusive appearance on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” (Click HERE for video of Gibbs' appearance). A member of the church for 20 years, Obama faced mounting criticism for his relationship to Trinity after...

WASHINGTON -- The Rev. Michael Pfleger's "I'm white! I'm entitled ... black man stealing my show" outburst about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton from the pulpit of the Obama family church, Trinity United Church of Christ, created a political problem for likely Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama that won't disappear. Pfleger's crusades against guns, prostitution, porn and tobacco have made good copy for years for a fairly admiring local press corps hooked on cheering for the underdog, the poor and the powerless. Pfleger is the subject of a documentary being made by Chicago-based David Axelrod, Obama's top strategist. On Friday, Axelrod...

In a painful episode of his quest for the White House, likely Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama said Saturday his family withdrew their membership at Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ. The damage control came as his church -- and controversial sermons from the Trinity pulpit -- were increasingly becoming a target that threatened Obama's presidential bid. A source in the Obama campaign said Obama had been having conversations with Moss for weeks over his concerns that the scrutiny the church was experiencing because of his candidacy was causing problems -- and that Trinity should not provide a platform...

TRANSCRIPT Barack Obama Press Avail Aberdeen, South Dakota May 31, 2008 Q: On the church decision do you feel this will put the issue behind you politically or do you feel it will persist and having done this now, do you wish you had done it several months ago? BO: Well, you know, after the National Press Club episode, as I said, I had a long conversation with Michelle and also had a long conversation with Reverend Moss. We prayed on it and you know, my interest has never been to try to politicize this or put the church in...

The Teflon candidate, Barack Hussein Obama, has resigned from his church following the latest scandal involving another preacher delivering racially charged comments. In this case, it was a guest speaker, a Roman Catholic priest, no less. Controversies surrounding the church have created persistent distractions to his campaign, so say his staffers. The problem is, this means nothing. It never has. The Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Reverend Otis Moss and now Rev. Michael Pfleger, whose videotaped guest sermon at the church Sunday showed him taunting Hillary Clinton and saying she felt “entitled” to the presidency because she’s white would have decimated the...

Seeking to put a string of controversies involving his longtime Chicago church behind him, Sen. Barack Obama on Saturday said he and his family are withdrawing their membership from Trinity United Church of Christ. Severing more than two decades of ties to his spiritual home on the city's South Side, Obama said he made the decision for his own political needs and in an effort to allow the church a return to some normalcy. "This is not a decision I come to lightly, and frankly it's one that I make with some sadness," he said at a hastily arranged evening...

Obama: Actually, I can quit you Pittsburgh Tribune-Review By Salena Zito WASHINGTON -- After the second Academy Award-winning performance by a pastor at his family's church, Trinity United in Chicago, Sen. Barack Obama quit his parish. Robert Gibbs, Obama's campaign communications director said Obama had resigned from the church "over the last few days."

Black Liberation Theology Obama has "distanced" himself from Trinity Church. For a moment, that seemed to be a good thing but as the Presidential candidate spoke it became clear that he was leaving so that Trinity would be free to worship without the watchful eye of the media. Obama confirmed that fact later when a reporter asked him why he won't denounce the controversial church with the answer, "I'm not going to denounce Trinity because Trinity isn't worthy of denouncing." Regardless of how that sounded, he meant it in a good way. More disappointing than the Senator's refusal to denounce...

Likely Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama has resigned from his controversial church, Trinity United Church of Christ. “We don’t want to have to answer for everything that’s stated in that church,” Obama told reporters in Aberdeen, South Dakota during a rare Saturday night press conference. Obama’s church came under intense scrutiny after videotapes were discovered of Obama’s longtime friend and former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright making anti-American and racist statements in sermons earlier this spring. Obama’s initial reaction was to defend Wright, until Wright engaged on a media tour and reiterated many of his most offensive remarks. Questions about the...

CNN reported this morning, story here, that The Obamas have confirmed they've resigned from Trinity United Church of Christ in the wake of the latest outburst of a sermon, this time by Father Michael Pfleger. While Senator Obama hopes this ends a very nagging problem to his candidacy, the move today raises many more concerns about his judgment. In Senator Obama's A More Perfect Union speech in Philadelphia last March, the one he later had to walk back from after Jeremiah Wright's National Press Club performance led Obama to quickly disown his pastor, he made a very careful effort to...

You’ve seen the latest video rant from Trinity featuring a Catholic priest in the lead role? Apparently the guy is just what you’d expect to find in any Catholic parish [/snark]: Ambushed by a Bill O’Reilly camera crew, Pfleger stated: "He (Farrakhan) has—first of all, he has not called Judaism a gutter religion of blood suckers. That is not what he has said because I have heard that talk. I stick up for Louis Farrakhan because he is another person that the media has chosen to define how they want to do it. And they demonize how they want to...

Obama said he and his wife, Michelle, had notified the church in a letter Friday that they “were withdrawing as members of Trinity,” in part because of “a cultural and a stylistic gap.”

The Rev. Michael Pfleger, who helped reignite Barack Obama's pastor problems by mocking Hillary Clinton, said this evening he's received "thousands of hate threats" since his videotaped pulpit rant. "They want to kill me," Pfleger told parishioners during a service in a St. Sabina Church chapel on Chicago's South Side this evening. "It's been very ugly." The firebrand Catholic Priest made his controversial Clinton comments last Sunday at Trinity United Church of Christ, home church of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's former pastor. Pfleger mocked Clinton for crying on the campaign trail, and suggested it was "white entitlement" leading Clinton...

ABERDEEN, S.D. (AP) - Barack Obama has resigned his 20 year membership in the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago in the aftermath of inflammatory remarks by his longtime pastor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and more recent fiery remarks at the church by another minister. Obama campaign communications director Robert Gibbs said Obama had resigned from the church "over the last few days."Campaign aides said they weren't immediately certain how the resignation took place, whether by letter or in some other fashion, and were trying to find out. Messages left for a church spokeswoman in Chicago were not immediately...

The archbishop of Chicago yesterday sharply criticized the Rev. Michael Pfleger for launching a "personal attack" on Hillary Rodham Clinton from the pulpit of Barack Obama's longtime Chicago church. "While a priest must speak to political issues that are also moral, he may not endorse candidates nor engage in partisan campaigning," Francis Cardinal George said after Pfleger's racially tinged comments about Clinton drew outrage. "Racial issues are both political and moral, and are also highly charged. Words can be differently interpreted, but Father Pfleger's remarks about Sen. Clinton are both partisan and amount to a personal attack. I regret that...