“Either believes this , has some affinity for what his pastor is saying or he just joined the largest church for political reasons, for opportunistic reasons.”
–Bill Kristol, Fox News Sunday

I’m not defending Obama on this but it does strike me there’s a third choice: that he disagreed with some things the pastor says and agrees with others; disagrees with some things the church does, and agrees with others. That would make Obama like, well, most Americans.
Every member of a congregation makes an ongoing assessment about whether the negatives of a house of worship outweigh the positives. But let’s not pretend that the standard for deciding how or where to worship is agreeing with everything the clergyman or woman says.
That said, I do think that the key question for Obama is not whether he agrees with Wright’s most famous statements (obviously he doesn’t) but why he decided to stay in the church.