On September 30th, William Bennett stated the following during his Morning in America radio program: “If you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose, abort every black baby in this country and your crime rate would go down.”

The scary thing is that Bennett is not just some right-wing radio host; he was Secretary of Education under President Reagan and President George Bush Sr.’s “drug czar,” and he continues to be an advisor to high-ranking politicians. In the past, Bennett had said he wasn’t “morally opposed” to “beheading drug dealers” as a guest on Larry King Live in 1999.

Bennett’s comments do not just expose one “bad apple” in the political establishment. His statement exposes the fact that the ruling elite doesn’t care about ordinary working people, particularly African-Americans. Bennett’s racist views, although usually covered up by “politically correct” language, are the norm amongst the rich and powerful in the US.

For instance, when Barbara Bush saw the horrible conditions for Katrina evacuees living in a football stadium, she remarked, “And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them.”

The Democrats have called for Bennett to apologize, but they haven’t exposed the real nature of his comments, because the Democrats have been carrying out policies which are a much bigger insult to African-Americans. Democratic President Bill Clinton oversaw the doubling of the prison population and dismantled welfare. The politicians of both parties have cut the budgets of social services and been incredibly negligent in addressing the problems in the Gulf Coast — creating the conditions that would lead someone to turn to a life of crime.