Bill Bennett

[Prudence]

I understand what he meant, but I also have a problem with what he said because it plays into racial perceptions in a way that I think someone of his political stature should try to avoid.

His statement would be true even if it were altered to hypothesize aborting all white babies. Crime rates would then presumeably drop by whatever percentage is committed by white people. Chosing "black people" as the group capitalizes on both the reality of higher crime stats and the public stereotypes of criminal identity. I can't help but think that part of his argument stands on the idea that white criminals are so few that the idea is ludicrous on its face, but black criminals are so numerous that it would actually be a solution to crime. A reprehensible solution, but effective. In contrast, a more racially neutral expression of the same argument would be to argue that mandatory abortions across the board would reduce juvenile crime and then continue with thoughts on abortion itself.

I suspect that this was an off-the-cuff remark and that he didn't really put that much though into it. Those of us that now have the luxury to examine this post-mortem, as it were, can take away the lesson that one should really watch what one says in interviews.