Thought Police

Today Ruben Navarrette Jr takes his righteous stand against Bill Bennett. The byline captures his view

Quit blustering, start apologizing and respect the right of others to be offended

The way I remember it, we have a right to free speech. Not a right to be offended, but I'm no constitutional scholar. For those of you who don't know, Bill Bennett said

You could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. [But that would be] an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do.

I found it interesting that the following passage appeared in his op-ed piece

Fox News Managing Editor Brit Hume asked if Bennett didn't have a point, given statistics suggesting that blacks account for more than their share of crime, and he insisted that Bennett had nothing for which to apologize. And right-wing radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, a longtime friend of Bennett's, went even further.

He suggested that Bennett should actually be "applauded" for arguing that abortion is a moral issue that can't be justified by, among other things, a desire to reduce crime.

Conservatives in the media, Limbaugh said, were going to stick together and not "let each other hang out to dry on something like this."

As I understand it, RL predicted that his "applauded" would be quoted out of context and that newspapers would try to paint him as a racist...

Update: Bennett replies here