Regardless of which side of the aisle you support, remarks made by conservative talk show host and former Education Secretary William Bennett are beyond offensive. He was quoted Wednesday as saying on Morning in America, "But 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 impossibly ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down." (ABC: White House criticizes Bennett's remarks on blacks).
President Bush sought to quickly distance himself from the remarks, issuing a statement through White House spokesman Scott McClellan that calls Bennett's commentary "inappropriate." Bennett has tried to dance around the comments, claiming they were taken out of context and were merely a hypothetical proposition. Personally, I can't think of a single context in which those remarks would be anything but offensive, racist, and outright deplorable.
There is absolutely no justification for comments of that nature in any forum. Were any one of us to make comments so inflammatory in the workplace, we'd be unemployed before the end of the day. Let us hope the stations that carry his show take the appropriate action and toss him out on his ear. That type of hatred is not - and should not be - protected speech under the First Amendment and the first response to Bennett should be the immediate removal of his microphone. His words are inexcusable.
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1 comment :
That was the part that really got me steamed. The most frightening aspect of this incident is that someone with that much hatred for a large segment of Americans actually served as Secretary of Education. That the hatred can be so ingrained that he doesn't even recognize it as such is absolutely appalling.
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