William Bennett makes desperate attempt to make the news

Former Education Secretary William Bennett... on his radio show, "Morning in America," was answering a caller's question when he took issue with the hypothesis put forth in a recent book that one reason crime is down is that abortion is up. "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," said Bennett. He went on to call that "an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down."

He continued, "In fact, if we could abort every baby in this county, just about every domestic issue would be instantly solved. Again, I'm not recommending such an ugly action, I'm just saying... it'd be a big help. You know."

"The president believes the comments were not appropriate," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.

He added, "at the same time, the president believes Mr. Bennett does have a point. I mean, he doesn't believe in abortion, and believes Mr. Bennett's idea would be really, really bad to enact, but it'd sure solve a lot of our problems and make a lot of decisions much easier. But he's just saying. You know."