President Barack Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is back in the news this week, but this time it’s for critical comments he made about the president at an event for the Chicago Teachers Union on Wednesday. While iconic civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered for the famous phrase, “I have a dream,” Wright suggested Obama’s legacy could be boiled down to “I have a drone.”
CNN news anchor Don Lemon presented a report on Wright’s remarks, asking if they could be considered “political payback” for Obama’s decision to denounce the pastor’s past rhetoric during the 2008 presidential campaign. While CNN’s cameras were asked to leave the room when Wright began speaking, the network managed to obtain some cell-phone video of his speech.
In addition to the unfavorable comparison between King and Obama, Wright also reportedly compared himself to the civil rights leader, who he said was reduced to “sanitized” soundbites much in the same manner negative soundbites were aired about him during the 2008 presidential campaign.