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Best deconstruction of Bennett’s remarks I’ve read so far, from a commenter at Daily Kos:

There is no distortion that could make those remarks worse than they were. The idea that any context could make even hypothetically suggesting that total genocide would reduce the crime rate just shows the depth of his bigotry.

And in fact even taking the entire conversation into account makes it worse not better. Even if, as some have claimed, he was only extrapolating from the observation that crime-rate (official) is higher in the black population, the fact that he said he “knew” that removing all black people, even hypothetically, would result in a reduction in crime rate means that at bottom, he believes that blackness must be causal. [Emphasis mine. -TM] If he had been prepared to consider that, say inequality was causal, or poverty, or judicial racism were causal, he could not have said that he “knew” the crime rate would go down. Because there is absolutely no way of knowing. It is perfectly possible the crime rate would stay the same or go up. It depends on what is causing the crime rate. By saying he “knew” what would happen, he was assuming race was causal.

Ergo it was not just disgustingly racist, but simply racist. There is absolutely no defence.

Now Bill Bennett can concentrate on blackjack full-time:

Bennett feels the heat

And yes – I feel tremendous pleasure from this. I’m OK with that. Sort of like when Bill O’Reilly was caught leaving unwanted dirty-talk messages on an employee’s phone, just when “The O’Reilly Factor for Kids” was coming out? Yeah, like that.

“In the White House that hero worshipped the president, [Bush’s Supreme Court nominee Harriet] Miers was distinguished by the intensity of her zeal: She once told me that the president was the most brilliant man she had ever met.”

-David Frum, National Review Online

“I’m disappointed, depressed and demoralized.”

-Bill Kristol, The Weekly Standard

“I am going to assume that this is a classic Bush head-fake gambit. If I’m wrong, I will spend the weekend banging my head against a concrete wall. This is the Supreme Court we’re talking about! It’s not a job for a political functionary!”

-John Podhoretz, The Corner on National Review (before the pick was announced this morning)

Man at a party with friends and his wife:

Man: You know I bet if I punched my wife in the mouth that would get her to shut up. But that would be morally reprehensible to do, and I would never hit my wife.

Wife: I can’t believe that you would say that, I’m offended that you would talk openly about punching me in the face.

Friend: Well, Wife you didn’t listen to his WHOLE statement, he said it would be morally reprehensible. He was just stating a FACT, because he’s a big guy and if he did punch you in the mouth I bet that it would make you shut up. I can’t stand that everyone is so P.C., he was just making a truthful claim and again why can’t he just talk about PUNCHING you in the face, it’s in his right to make thought experiments.

If we killed all the vets returning from duty in Iraq, we would reduce the incidence of mental illness in this country. Of course that would be very hard to do and it would be morally reprehensible but we would have alot less nut jobs.

Both stolen from comments at Balloon Juice, where conservatives are falling all over themselves to figure out ways to support Bennett and his comments. Which says more than Bennett’s quote ever did, if you ask me.

“You know, there’s a lot of filth coming out of Hollywood these days. And if your sole purpose was to clean up Hollywood, you could just abort every Jewish baby in this country. Of course it would be impossible and reprehensible to do such a thing – but Hollywood would be a better place.”

“If all you wanted to do was lower the obesity rate in this country, there’s a simple solution – shoot all the fat people. I mean, just round them up and shoot them in the head and dump their bodies in the ocean. But of course, that would be wrong.”

UPDATE: The White House now calls Bennett’s original remarks “not appropriate.” To which Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) responded, “Not appropriate is wearing white shoes after Labor Day. These comments were reprehensible and racist.” Yay to Sen. Lautenberg!

Beautiful, bracing stuff over at Daily Kos:

Cries from the Lake of Fire

Hat tip: John Callender at lies.com

An excerpt:

I know you hate me, and anyone else who dares disturb the thin strands of alternate reality in which George W. Bush is an intellectual giant, Saddam really was responsible for 9/11, the economy is getting better by the minute, and we capture the most very important members of al Qaeda on a weekly basis.

But here’s some advice. You’d better start hating me more. This is the world you forged and, unfortunately for you, I’m beginning to take a fancy for it. Welcome to the politics of your own party, finally sprouting from the ground on which you planted the seeds and shat upon them.

Amen, brother.

Which is worse:

A) American soldiers torturing prisoners

B) Releasing photos of the abuse

Take your time with your answer. This one’s important.

“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 impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down.”

-Bill Bennett, America’s self-appointed morality czar (and gambling addict), on the radio this week

Boy the good news just keeps on coming this week:

Judge orders release of Abu Ghraib photos

That was some fraternity party, wasn’t it, Rush?

DeLay indicted, steps down.

Put a fork in him. Next?