A political campaign is also a chance to exhume everything a candidate has said in her career, from all the tweets to exactly what she meant 30 years ago when she called herself a “bitch for God” at a charity event.
“I think it’s fair to say I wish I had never said that. Something was going on many years ago, in a situation that had to do with some AIDS patients. I would open my course with a prayer. There was something we were doing, and somebody was saying, ‘Marianne, I don’t think we should open with a prayer.’ And I said, ‘No, I think we should open with a prayer.’ And I was getting all this resistance to opening with a prayer. And they said, ‘You’re being a real bitch about this.’ And I said, ‘If I’m a bitch, I’m a bitch for God,’” Ms. Williamson said. “I think it was something about fund-raising, and some very chic people in Manhattan who were going to be there. And I just took umbrage at the idea, whatever.”