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Monday, October 03, 2005

Bennett Apologizes for Remarks, Asks to Roll “Double or Nothing”

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Las Vegas, NV – Disgraced political commentator and former professional scold William Bennett called a press conference today to apologize for suggesting, on his radio show last Wednesday, 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.”

The apology surprised many, coming just after Bennett’s combative remarks on Friday, when he was asked by CNN if he owed people an apology and replied, “I don’t think I do. I think people who misrepresented my view owe me an apology.”

“It was a simple reductio ad absurdum based on statistical probabilities,” Bennett explained today.  “And what’s more, I didn’t say it was a dead certainty.  I said I’d give you 7 to 2 that aborting black babies would reduce crime.  Hell, I’d even give you 4 to 1.  I’d drop a couple hundred thou on that proposition in a heartbeat.”

Champion of Civil Rights

“I’m not racist, and I’ll put my record up against theirs,” Bennett had said on Friday, referring to Nancy Pelosi and other critics. “I’ve been a champion of the real civil rights issue of our times—equal educational opportunities for kids.”

Over the weekend, however, this account was disputed by former Federal Communications Commission chairman Reed Hundt, who wrote in TPM Cafe:

When I was chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (1993-97), I asked Bill Bennett to visit my office so that I could ask him for help in seeking legislation that would pay for internet access in all classrooms and libraries in the country. Eventually Senators Olympia Snowe and Jay Rockefeller, with the White House leadership of President Clinton and Vice President Gore, put that provision in the Telecommunications Law of 1996, and today nearly 90% of all classrooms and libraries do have such access. The schools covered were public and private. So far the federal funding (actually collected from everyone as part of the phone bill) has been matched more or less equally with school district funding to total about $20 billion over the last seven years. More than 90% of all teachers praise the impact of such technology on their work. At any rate, since Mr. Bennett had been Secretary of Education I asked him to support the bill in the crucial stage when we needed Republican allies. He told me he would not help, because he did not want public schools to obtain new funding, new capability, new tools for success. He wanted them, he said, to fail so that they could be replaced with vouchers, charter schools, religious schools, and other forms of private education.

In response to Hundt, Bennett insisted today that he was merely “placing a side bet” on charter schools and religious schools, having been offered “a great tip” from Republican lawmakers who had assured him that they would “take out” America’s public schools “in the seventh round or earlier.”

Moral philosopher

Bennett has a long history of gambling on provocative moral issues, going back to 1989 when he suggested that there was a 6 to 1 chance that Thomas Aquinas would support the beheading of drug dealers, but only a 3 to 2 chance that St. Augustine would “want to be in on the action.” More recently, in 2000, he made headlines for insisting that George Bush’s 1976 DUI conviction was “no big deal” unless “he was on the wrong side of the .2 blood-alcohol-level over/under, ‘cause I had him under.”

Bennett closed his remarks today by asking the American people for a second chance.  “One more time, double or nothing,” Bennett pleaded.  “I just need one more shot.  I’m not ready to cash in my chips just yet, people.  Here.  Let me tell you how far the crime rate would fall if we aborted babies from Spanish-speaking households.  Twenty percent, I’m saying, and you give me a ten percent margin of error either way.  Eighteen to twenty-two.  Let it roll.  All in.  Daddy needs a new pair of shoes.”

Posted by Michael on 10/03 at 12:19 PM
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