He's back, and not quite repentant. Father Michael Pfleger -- the Catholic priest whose mocking of Hillary Clinton from the pulpit of Trinity United Church of Christ was the final controversy that led to Barack Obama leaving his spiritual home of two decades -- in his first interview acknowledged that his delivery might have left something to be desired, but stood by his message.
"I was giving a talk about race. And is entitlement one of the things about race that I believe in? Is an unequal playing field one of the things I believe in? Yes, so I don't apologize for being passionate, I don't apologize for being free," Pfleger said in the interview aired today on ABC's "Good Morning America."
"I apologize when my passion or my freeness and my flawness of character get in the way of the content, which is much more important to me -- that people hear the message. And when I am in the way of the message then I'm not only apologetic, but I have to change."
In a sermon in May, Pfleger called Clinton a white" and "entitled" politician stunned to see Obama winning the Democratic nomination.
"I really believe that she just always thought, 'This is mine. I'm Bill's wife, I'm white and this is mine. I just gotta get up and step into the plate,' " Pfleger said. "And then out of nowhere came, 'Hey, I'm Barack Obama.' And she said, 'Oh, damn, where did you come from? I'm white. I'm entitled. There's a black man stealing my show.' "
Two days after his sermon became public and a YouTube sensation, Obama announced that he was resigning from Trinity, where his former pastor's incendiary sermons also caused him trouble on the campaign trail.
Pfleger, himself, was temporarily suspended from his parish by Chicago's bishop and had to promise not to make more political statements this election.
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