He really doesn’t get it, does he?

Former Education Secretary Bill Bennett made a lot of noise recently when he made the following comment on his radio show:

“All right, well, I mean, I just don't know. I would not argue for the pro-life position based on this, because you don't know. I mean, it cuts both -- you know, one of the arguments in this book Freakonomics that they make is that the declining crime rate, you know, they deal with this hypothesis, that one of the reasons crime is down is that abortion is up…

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.”

After being called on this unquestionable racist statement, Bennett simply did not understand the nature of the objection. He thought that it was because people were accusing him of advocating abortion, which is obviously was not.

THEN, he blamed the controversy on the fact that it was liberals, not he, who was racist, and their overreaction was due to the fact that the comment “hit too close to what they believe, not what I believe.”

Finally, just today, he blamed the media for misrepresenting what he had actually said.

Of course, what Bennett (and apparently those close to him) do not realize is that there was no misunderstanding his remark and it had nothing to do with abortion, but the explicit belief that blacks cause crime, in that reducing the number of black people would reduce the amount of crime committed.

This is what upsets people such as Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-MI), who wrote in his weblog:

“But what they [right-wing critics] miss is not the abortion "hypothetical" -- as absurd and tasteless as that is -- but Bennett's suggestion that African Americans are synonymous with crime. It is a text book case of stereotyping and racism, and cannot be explained away.”

But try he does. Bennett’s statement is racist in intent, and his refusal to simply apologizes or suggest he spoke before thinking is typical of conservatives of late who blame any and all problems on the media or on liberals. How sad.