Hillary Clinton yesterday waded for the first time into the bitter controversy about Barack Obama's pastor, even as she tried to cover her own embarrassment at being caught exaggerating the risks of her trip to Bosnia in 1996, writes Tom Baldwin in Washington.

At a Pennsylvania press conference, Mrs Clinton said she would have quit the Rev Jeremiah Wright's church in protest against his anti-American and racially-charged sermons. "He would not have been my pastor," she said.

Comparing the language he used about whites to racist remarks about black people, she warned that freedom of speech should not be abused, saying: "It's time to stand up for what is right... hate speech is unacceptable in any setting."

She said: "We don't have a choice when it comes to our relatives. We have a choice when it comes to our pastors and the churches we attend. Everyone will have to decide these matters for themselves. They are obviously very personal matters." She added that if Mr Wright had been her pastor, "the choice would be clear".

Mr Obama has refused to leave his Chicago church despite condemning Mr Wright's sermons that included the stance that the US practised state terrorism and 9/11 had been chickens "coming home to roost". His pastor for more than 20 years has also described the country as the "US KKK of A" and said that black people should sing "God damn America" rather than "God Bless America".

In a generally well-received speech last week, the Democratic frontrunner instead tried to put Mr Wright's views in the context of an older generation of African Americans who still felt the pain and humiliation of segregation. Mr Obama said he could no more disown a religious mentor - who had married him and baptised his children - than he could disown the black community as a whole.

A scheduled sermon by Mr Wright in Florida last night, his first since the row over his black liberationist theology exploded a fortnight ago, was cancelled at short notice.

Mr Obama's spokesman, Bill Burton, voiced suspicion that the timing of Mrs Clinton remarks had more to do with her own problems than any sense of outrage over Mr Wright.

“After originally refusing to play politics with this issue, it’s disappointing to see Hillary Clinton’s campaign sink to this low in a transparent effort to distract attention away from the story she made up about dodging sniper fire in Bosnia," he said.

In a speech in Washington last week, Mrs Clinton said of the trip she made as First Lady: “I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.”

But TV footage shows Mrs Clinton and her daughter, Chelsea, as well as other members of her party such as singer Sheryl Crow and the comedian Sinbad, stepping calmly off the aircraft. She was then shown wreathed in smiles as she hugged and kissed a local girl who presented her with a letter.

Confronted by such evidence this week, Mrs Clinton admitted her comments had been a “mis-statement” which she described as a “minor blip”. Asked to explain the happy scenes captured by TV, she said, "I had to meet this eight-year-old girl", so “I took her stuff and left”.

Yesterday, she added a note of defiance, saying: "So I made a mistake. That happens. It shows I'm human - which for some people is a revelation." In a radio interview Mrs Clinton went even further, saying: "Last week, you know, for the first time in 12 or so years I misspoke.”

In another day marked by clashes between the two Democratic candidates - which some party elders fear could damage their chances of re-gaining the White House - Mrs Clinton predicted the race would go on all the way until the summer.

Dismissing recent claims that Mr Obama's delegate lead is such that her campaign has almost zero chance of winning the nomination, she said: “I think that what we have to wait and see is what happens in the next three months.

"There’s been a lot of talk about what if, what if, what if. Let’s wait until we get some facts. Over the next months millions of people are going to vote. And we should wait and see the outcome of those votes.”

Mrs Clinton's spokesman, Phil Singer, later hit back at suggestions from the Obama camp that she was playing politics with the issue of Mr Wright. “Senator Clinton was asked a question and answered it based on her personal views.," he said. "Considering that the Obama campaign peddled a photo of President Clinton with Reverend Wright less than 48 hours after Senator Obama gave a speech calling for a high-minded discussion on race, this latest attack is disingenuous.”

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