Fox News host Chris Wallace on Friday suggested that it would be "legitimate" for presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to attack President Barack Obama for his association with Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.
"As far as Rev. Wright is concerned, I think it had a lot of relevance and I think when you look back on it, [former Republican presidential nominee John] McCain was crazy not to bring it up," Wallace told Fox News host Gretchen Carlson. "Not in a matter of exploiting it, it's a legitimate issue."
"That is the church that Barack Obama prayed in, worshipped in for 20 years. And he's been president for four now so I don't know that it is as relevant as it used to be."
On Thursday, The New York Times revealed that a pro-Romney super PAC was considering an ad campaign linking Obama to Wright. Their proposal goes so far as to propose possible responses to charges of race-baiting if ads were to mention Wright's "black liberation theology."
"I want to make it very clear: I repudiate that effort," Romney told reporters after learning of the plan. "I think it's the wrong course for a PAC or a campaign. I hope that our campaigns can be respectively about the future and about issues and about vision for America."
But Romney did mention Wright while attacking Obama last year for being influenced by "those who would like to see America more secular."
"And I’m not sure which is worse, him listening to Reverend Wright or him saying that we ... must be a less Christian nation," the former Massachusetts governor told Fox News host Sean Hannity.
In the end, Wallace believes that allowing a super PAC to do the dirty work could be a win-win for Romney.
"In a sense, Romney had the best of both worlds," he explained. "The story gets out there, it reminds everybody about Rev. Wright and he can sit there and say, 'I took the high road.'"
(h/t: Mediaite)