Rev. Jeremiah Wright said he does not feel any regrets over his severed relationship with President Barack Obama, according to an interview in The Daily Press published Wednesday. Obama was a member of the Chicago church in which Wright was the longtime pastor (Click here for audio of interview).
US President Barack Obama, left, shown here with his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, in a photo from March 10, 2005.
Photo: AP
Wright also told the publication that he had not spoken to his former parishioner since Obama became president, implying that the White House won't allow Obama to talk to him. He did not indicate whether he had tried to reach the president.
"Regret for what... that the media went back five, seven, 10 years and spent $4,000 buying 20 years' worth of sermons to hear what I've been preaching for 20 years?
"Regret for preaching like I've been preaching for 50 years? Absolutely none," Wright said.
Wright said that when he went to vote, he did not hold any grudge against Obama.
"Of course I voted for him; he's my son. I'm proud of him," Wright said. "I've got five biological kids. They all make mistakes and bad choices. I haven't stopped loving any of them.
"He made mistakes. He made bad choices. I've got kids who listen to their friends. He listened to those around him. I did not disown him."
Asked if he had spoken to the president, Wright told the paper: "Them Jews aren't going to let him talk to me. I told my baby daughter that he'll talk to me in five years when he's a lame duck, or in eight years when he's out of office.
"They will not let him talk to somebody who calls a spade what it is. ... I said from the beginning: he's a politician; I'm a pastor. He's got to do what politicians do."
Wright also told the Press that Obama should have dispatched a US delegation to the World Conference on Racism held recently in Geneva, Switzerland, but that the president did not do so for fear of offending Jews and Israel.
"Ethnic cleansing is going on in Gaza. Ethnic cleansing [by] the Zionists is a sin and a crime against humanity, and they don't want Barack talking like that because that's anti-Israel," the controversial pastor said.
Wright is in Hampton this week attending Hampton University's 95th Annual Ministers Conference. Himself the son of a pastor, Wright said he had attended the conference since he was a child - though he was not spotted at the conference in 2008 during the heat of the debate over comments he made that many in the media branded racially divisive.
Perhaps without the Wright controversy, the issue of race might not have become a part of the 2008 presidential campaign.
After the initial rounds of the controversy, Obama made his famous speech in Philadelphia on race relations, in which he said he could no more disown Wright than his own grandmother.
Obama eventually distanced himself from the church in light of the sharp criticism against him for his ties to it.
