President Obama's "role model and spiritual mentor" for twenty years, the man who helped shape Obama's world-view and inspired The Audacity of Hope, is back in the news. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright told the Newport News, VA, Daily Press that he knows why Obama hasn't been in touch lately (emphasis added):
Asked if he had spoken to the president, Wright said: "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 to 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 was unrepentant about the hateful and divisive sermons that surfaced during the campaign (giving us soundbites like "God damn America" and "The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color") and denied that he had any regrets:
"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.
So Wright maintains that he's been preaching the same way for 20-50 years, huh? But I recall Obama insisting that he never — well, hardly ever — heard Wright say anything hateful, offensive, or inappropriate during his twenty-year association.
Maybe Obama just never really listened (narcissists tend not to be good listeners).