It’s not what he said so much as how he said it. What does it say, exactly, about Bennet that the first thing to pop into his mind when he thought of “crime” is “black people?” And I’m afraid his subsequent refusal to apologize for the poor choice of example is quite telling.

Is it the cross-burning, “strange fruit” kind of racism? Probably not. But I don’t see how it’s too far removed from Jimmy the Greek racism…

He was responding to a pro-life questioner who opined that…”Social Security would not be in trouble today if we hadn’t aborted all those babies”.

Bennett thought that was a poor argument and said that the pros and cons of abortion should be decided on morality, not economics. It was as bad as if you used the argument that…”to reduce crime we should abort all black males”. He added that that was a horrific argument and not worthy of discussion.

And the left explodes….

It didn’t seem very controversial to me at the time.

You simply don’t know what tomorrow’s going to look like.

That’s a fair point but a bit too optimistic. I think as long as minorities remain poor, crime will be a factor for them.

That said, while Bennet’s point wasn’t nearly so nefarious as some have tried to paint it, he’d have been hard-pressed to find a stupider way to phrase it.