Bill Bennett's Slip of the Tongue

The book Freakonomics noted that abortion had reduced the crime rate, by reducing the number of children born to poor, unmarried, often teen mothers, the children most likely to commit crime later on.

Bennet, in discussing bad arguments for and against abortion, noted that just because you could abort "every black baby" in this country, and it be "an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do," but conceded "the crime rate would go down."

Liberals, and Media Matters of course (the link above) are of course making a major fuss out of this.

Yes, he mispoke. It's wince-inducing statement, something you know someone shouldn't have said. But while Media Matters righteously points out that Freakonomics did not make a "race-based argument," it does seem to me that poor unmarried teenagers having babies will, as a statistical matter, skew fairly black.

He shouldn't have said it -- no need to say "black," and "black" isn't the right word anyway; the theory talks about poor children born out of wedlock, some of which are black, but many of which aren't, and of course many black children aren't born poor or out of wedlock -- but one can hardly cry "racism" for making this inadvertant equivalency while speaking extemporaneously.

Mark Levin at the Corner is having none of it.

I like this line:

Let's not cede the moral high ground to people who've never held it.

Via the Blogometer.

posted by Ace at 12:37 PM

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