Wright: Obama made 'bad' choice to distance self, but it's ok
TRINITY | He also mocks 'dumb broad' from 'The View'
President-elect Barack Obama made a "bad decision" by distancing himself from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his church, Wright said Sunday -- but that's OK.
"He's still my child," Wright said in a sermon in which he expressed pride in Obama's longtime association with Trinity United Church of Christ.
(Trinity United Church of Christ/AP file)
His talk was spiced with his trademark blend of history lesson, mimicry, singing, and -- depending on your point of view -- insults, or telling it like it is. One object of contempt seemed to be Elisabeth Hasselbeck of ABC's "The View," whom -- while not saying her name -- Wright twice referred to as a "broad," including once as "that dumb broad." Hasselbeck has criticized Wright on "The View."
Wright, speaking at Trinity on its 47th anniversary, said he was proud of "the only church that produced the first and only African-American president in the 211-year history of the United States. No other church can say that."
"The hatred of the media and the haters in politics may have caused him to distance himself from us, but the love of Christ will never allow me to distance myself from him,'' Wright said of Obama. "I can no more disown him than I can disown any other child of mine who makes [a] bad decision. He made a bad decision, but he's still my child."
Wright also compared the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib Prison to the abuses of old colonial powers. "What we doing with a base in Cuba?" he asked. "We just take stuff."
He retired from Trinity this year but was invited back to speak Sunday. Wright and his sermons were a lightning rod in the presidential race, particularly one in which he said "God damn America." Obama subsequently cut ties with Wright and the church where he was married and where his children were baptized.
Also at Trinity on Sunday was the Rev. Michael Pfleger, whom Wright called "my main man." Pfleger drew heat with criticism of then-candidate Hillary Clinton last spring.