Terry Jones, the religious whacko in Gainesville, has called off his Quran-burning.

The pastor planning a burning of the Koran on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks said Thursday he would not go forward with the event, adding he would meet with the imam planning to build an Islamic center near ground zero.

But a deal that the pastor, Terry Jones, said that he had reached to move the Islamic center far from ground zero seems to be more vision than reality. The imam planning the center, Feisal Abdul Rauf, said in a statement that he had not spoken to Mr. Jones or Muhammad Musri, the Orlando Imam who has been acting as a mediator between New York and Gainesville.

The pastor’s announcement came after a growing chorus of demands, from President Obama to religious leaders, American generals and others, that he cancel the event planned for Saturday because of the potential impact on Christian-Muslim relations and the effect a Koran burning would have on American troops fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. Earlier in the day, President Obama said that the pastor’s plan to burn the Koran on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was a “stunt” that violates American principles of religious tolerance.

Now that we’ve gotten the President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, General Petraeus, and Sarah Palin and John Boehner (leading Mr. Jones to Park51 by the nose), I am reminded of the frenzy over Terri Schiavo: we forgot all about her and focused on the people yelling at each other. Sheesh.