Priest Again Apologizes For Remarks In Sermon

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Pastor Mocks Clinton at Obama's Church

The Rev. Michael Pfleger, a guest pastor at Sen. Barack Obama's Chicago church, mocks rival presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton from the pulpit, saying her attitude is she's white and entitled to the job.

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Obama responded by delivering a speech on race that cast the preacher in the broader context of the African American struggle for equality. In an address delivered in Philadelphia on March 18, Obama said he could no more "disown" Wright "than I can my white grandmother -- a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me . . . but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe."

The speech was generally praised, but it also seemed to inflame Wright; he emerged six weeks later to accuse the candidate of political expediency, while repeating some of his more contentious, racially charged assertions. "Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls," Wright said in an April 28 appearance at the National Press Club.

Obama split for good with Wright the next day, saying that "what Reverend Wright said yesterday directly contradicts everything that I've done during my life."

The denunciation did not extend to Trinity, which Obama described as "a wonderful congregation," saying: "The people of Trinity are wonderful people. And what attracted me has always been their ministry's reach beyond the church walls."

Obama told reporters Saturday night in South Dakota that after the National Press Club episode, he spoke with Moss about the scrutiny his campaign had brought upon the church. "My suspicion at that time . . . was that it was going to be very difficult to continue our membership there so long as I was running for president," Obama said. The Pfleger episode, he continued, "just reinforced that view that we don't want to have to answer for everything that's stated in a church."

Staff writer Derek Kravitz contributed to this report.