Bill Bennett isn't sorry. In a speech delivered on October 8 in Bakersfield, California, Bill Bennet says as much.

I have been slandered, defamed, misrepresented and libeled. I will not stand for it. I will not go away, or go meekly and quietly into that good night. Nor will I withdraw from the discussion. My entire career has been one of taking on serious issues, I have taken brickbats for that. I will continue to. Those who do not engage in serious conversations about serious matters can lob their shots at me. I can take them.

Indeed. It can be argued that Bill Bennett has, in effect, painted a big ass target on his chest and invited those shots with his appallingly ignorant statements on his radio show, Morning in America.

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.

 Bill's October 8th defense of himself is, if anything, even more appalling, for the fact that while taking such a strident, defiant tone, Bill Bennett continues to blame the media for taking his comments out of context, black people for not appreciating all Bill Bennett has done for their communities, and abortion just for being legal. He never displays even an inkling that the real problem lies in the fact that he equates race with crime, not poverty or a lack of education and opportunity or even the Repbulican bugaboo, the single parent household. In Bill Bennett's feeble imagination, Langston Hughes and Colin Powell are the same as any one of a number of barely literate street thugs who are out for all they can steal. In Bill Bennett's world, all black people are created equal: equally likely to be criminals.

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