Obviously its more important to focus on the candidate than on who they know. I’d be more concerned about anything Obama/McCain/Clinton said than anything their various friends/family/fundraisers said – excepting where those people are very obviously used as surrogates. So in this way whatever McCain is saying is more important than what Wright has said.

However, this looks like a slip of the tongue rather than McCain not knowing the difference between Al Queda and, say, the Mehdi Army. Pastor Wright’s comments can not be taken as a “did I say ‘god damn’? I’m sorry, I meant ‘god bless’” sort of thing.