GMA: Raising Rev. Wright 'Close to Hitting Under the Belt'

April 2nd, 2008 9:00 AM

ABC has served warning: use the Rev. Wright against Barack Obama at your peril. Be prepared to be accused of "raising the race issue" to hit "below the belt."

ABC's David Wright, a certified Obama fan/Hillary critic based on this past performance, issued his edict on today's Good Morning America.

Riffing off Hillary having compared herself to Rocky Balboa running all the way up those steps in the first movie, Wright first fairly pointed out the irony of the analogy: Rocky wound up losing the fight. Pushing the boxing metaphor, Wright then landed his haymaker:

DAVID WRIGHT: In its approach to superdelegates, the Clinton campaign may be close to hitting below the belt. Clinton's top delegate hunter Harold Ickes told an interviewer he's raising the race issue with superdelegates, arguing that Obama's controversial former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, makes him unelectable.

View video here.

Now, Ickes may be few people's idea of Mr. Nice Guy. But contrary to Wright's claim, the Clinton surrogate surely never said he's "raising the race issue." That's pure editorializing by Wright.

And is it really Wright's role to suggest that mentioning the Rev. Wright is "hitting below the belt"? Has ABC now established the rule, henceforth and forever through the general election campaign, that it's off limits to point out that Obama chose as his personal "spiritual guide" a man who, among other things, called on God to damn America? Is referring to Wright raising "the race issue" or is it more aptly calling into question the judgment of a man who would remain for 20 years in such a pastor's pews?

Bonus Coverage: Robin Digs the YouTube Kid's Obama Endorsement

At the end of the campaign segment, GMA played a YouTube clip of a very young child [couldn't be more than two] yelling at the dinner table "I love Obama!"

Remarked co-anchor Robin Roberts: "out of the mouths of babes." Seems harmless enough, but consider that the Biblically-based phrase has come to be defined as an exclamation used when a child says something of surprising wisdom from which adults might learn. Sure begins to sound like Roberts' seconding of the toddler's sentiment.