Bill Bennett, The Bilious Babbling Boob

Blame the "liberal media" for once again grabbing hold of a conservative's stupid statement and disseminating it to We The People, thereby bringing embarrassment raining down upon him. No matter how richly that embarrassment is deserved, those damn Libs should just keep those little indiscretions hidden under the rug, where they belong.

(Just like the Republicans did when Bill Clinton got caught with his fly unzipped. But I digress.)

Reagan's secretary of education Bill Bennett has a radio show. (I know, I was surprised as well.) And Bill The Boob made a rather ill-advised comment on his September 28th broadcast:

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.

Now, to put his comment in context: His caller had hypothesized that the potential lost Social Security revenue from all aborted fetuses since Roe v. Wade was decided, would have kept the Social Security program fully funded. And Bennett was specifically addressing the theory in the book Freakonomics that the crime rate had fallen as the abortion demand had increased.

Still ... Bennett is a boob. No doubt about it. (And I mean no insult to all the lovely boobs out there. You know who you are, and discreet photos are always appreciated.)

The heck of it is, technically, Bennett is absolutely right. You could abort every black fetus in America, and your crime rate would go down. Similarly, you could abort every white fetus in America, and the crime rate would go down. You could abort every Hispanic fetus, same results. Asian fetuses? Same results.

For that matter, you could abort EVERY SINGLE FETUS conceived during the next twelve months, and the crime rate would eventually plummet. It stands to reason that, if you reduce the number of people being born, you will also reduce the number of people committing crimes. Heck, "ethnic cleansing" has been going on in the Middle East for many years now, and petty crime is down. Brutal murders by roving bands of religious fanatics may be on the rise, but petty crime is pretty low.

An inherently logical statement, however, does not necessarily make that statement rational. Or, for that matter, wise to inject into popular discourse.

But it is also not necessarily wise to try to grandstand on that display of ignorance to make your own political hay. That's why Democrats should not be screaming for Bennett to apologize. It would make a lot more sense to just let him twist in the wind, as Tom DeLay and Bill Frist and Michael Brown and, yes, even Dubya are doing.

Although they were foolish enough to have elected Dubya to a second term, the American people are not so stupid as to ignore the self-destructive hypocrisy of the "Family Values Party". By screaming about the GOP's mistakes from the top of Capitol Hill, the Dems only soil themselves with the ambient stench rising from the mess. Better to let Bill Bennett stink this one up all by himself.