I’m not good at posting links..so this may or may not work, Sarge. But you are in the area and may have better info than I do. :)
to call that a retraction is parsing pretty heavily. I tend to think words mean things. West is assuming way too much and has not (based on the link you provided) walked his comments back.
Well, Berdie, I read it, and it seems a real vanilla statement. Certainly not enough to expunge his original words.