Bill Bennett on reducing crime

From the September 28 broadcast of Salem Radio Network's Bill Bennett'sMorning in America:

CALLER: I noticed the national media, you know, they talk a lot about theloss of revenue, or the inability of the government to fund Social Security,and I was curious, and I've read articles in recent months here, that theabortions that have happened since Roe v. Wade, the lost revenue from thepeople who have been aborted in the last 30-something years, could fundSocial Security as we know it today. And the media just doesn't -- nevertouches this at all.

BENNETT: Assuming they're all productive citizens?

CALLER: Assuming that they are. Even if only a portion of them were, itwould be an enormous amount of revenue.

BENNETT: Maybe, maybe, but we don't know what the costs would be, too. Ithink as -- abortion disproportionately occur among single women? No.

CALLER: I don't know the exact statistics, but quite a bit are, yeah.

BENNETT: All right, well, I mean, I just don't know. I would not argue forthe pro-life position based on this, because you don't know. I mean, it cutsboth -- you know, one of the arguments in this book Freakonomics that theymake is that the declining crime rate, you know, they deal with thishypothesis, that one of the reasons crime is down is that abortion is up.Well --

CALLER: Well, I don't think that statistic is accurate.

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 doknow that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if thatwere 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.

Bill Bennett's Morning in America airs on approximately 115 radio stationswith an estimated weekly audience of 1.25 million listeners.


I don’t listen to Mr. Bennett’s show but heard of the comment and I wanted to investigate myself and read the context it was in. Clearly we can take someone’s words, quote them out of context, and make them sound like they said something entirely different. He chose a poor example to explain his point. Let’s say he used caucasion babies, rather than black babies to demonstrate his point, the result would be the same. Hind - sight being 20/20, he should have said that if you allowed every considered abortion, the crime rate would go down.

The guy screwed up with his choice of words, but I think the media is jumping on this due to the recent mess some republicans are finding themselves in. Other than him not being thoughtful about his choice of example, the other beef I have with this situation is the media choosing one sentence, and highlighting only that. Part of this is a result of the media trying to give a story in less than 15 seconds. Not every story is a sound-bite, and not every sound-bite is a story. Being one who tends to be politically left of center, it pains me to say that I think the media is running with this due to the sensationalistic matter that is being featured. You know that old saying, “if it bleeds, it leads”, well, I don’t think there were any bleeding victims that day. Honestly, I would have gone on more about Tom “the Hammer” DeLay a little more.

To sum it up, though what he said was racially insensitive, race should have had nothing to do with what he was trying to discuss. Whether it be a Freudian slip, or just a boneheaded example, he just plain screwed up. Seems to me he is in line with his fellow republicans.

Brian