Bill Bennett's "Modest Proposal"

I have until now avoided commenting on former Reagan administration education secretary and current radio host Bill Bennett's comments. But I think, having seen much of what the right-wing knee jerks have said in response, some thoughts are necessary. So here goes.

During the Sept. 28 broadcast of his radio show, Bennett responded to a caller who suggested a baseless link between legalized abortion and projected shortfalls in the Social Security system by claiming that aborting all black children would reduce the crime level. Here's what Bennett actually said (Yes Rush,it's only in part):

BENNETT: Well, I don't think it is either, I don't think it is either, because first of all, there is just too much that you don't know. But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky.

Here's Andrew McCarthy's response on National Review online:

That he [Bennett] was right in this seems to matter little. Bennett is being fried by the PC police and the ethnic-grievance industry, which have disingenuously ripped his minor point out of its context in a shameful effort to paint him as a racist. He’s about as bigoted as Santa Claus.

[I guess he's never seen Billy Bob Thornton's interpretation in Bad Santa]

Here's the response of National Review Online contributor Mrk R. Levin:

So, what do we have here? We have another attempt, by a Democrat front-group (funded largely by George Soros) [Media Matters], to smear a thoroughly decent man who harbors no racial prejudice of any kind. We don't need to split hairs in defense of Bill Bennett. We don't need to accept the spin that's used as the basis for the smear by those who seek to destroy him. Nothing Bill Bennett said, when read in full, is racist.

Regular N.Y.Post columnist and NRO Online contributor John Podhoretz also weighed in:

Any remotely fair person would acknowledge that Bennett simply misspoke

These comments, as well as George W. Bush's mild response that Bennett's comments were "inappropriate," and Rush Limbaugh's attack on "Media Matters", the website that brought Bennett's comments to the fore (and from which many of these quotes have been taken), rather than on Bennett, that seem to require a simple comment: I have never met William Bennett nor do I know what thoughts and feelings he "harbors" in his heart regarding people of color, but what we do know is that William Bennett is capable of actually thinking these thoughts ("you could abort every black baby in this country") and then being stupid enough to utter them out loud. But believe me, it's his capacity to think this way that scares the hell out of me. It makes me wonder what other thoughts he and his ilk "harbor."