From the WSJ Opinion Archives
Forbidden
Thoughts
Bill Bennett is standing firm in the face of an attack launched by David Brock's
foul MediaMatters.org site. In a week-end roundup, MM clarified what it found
invidious about Bennett's comments regarding abortion, crime and race, which
we analyzed
Friday (italics in original, boldface ours):
Bennett and his defenders have seized on Bennett's original statement that it would be "impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible" to actually abort all black babies. But that isn't the issue; of course everyone understands that Bill Bennett doesn't want to abort all black babies. The issue is that Bennett, upon thinking "crime rate," immediately thought of black people. The issue is that Bennett thinks and speaks of crime as an issue of race.
Here we see the totalitarian mindset of the politically correct left. "The issue," it turns out, isn't just what Bennett said but what Bennett thinks. Yes, MediaMatters is accusing Bill Bennett of thoughtcrime. It's "1984," and Big Brock is watching. Fortunately, Brock and his force are more Keystone Kops than Thought Police, and therefore this column, like Bennett, is not afraid to entertain some forbidden thoughts.
It is a fact that blacks in America have a far higher violent crime rate than nonblacks. MediaMatters and politically correct folks everywhere do not want you to think about this fact, at least if you are white. But which is a bigger problem, the fact itself or white people's thinking about it?
To explore that question, consider the practical implications of the high black crime rate. If you are white, it affects you only insofar as you come into contact with black people. Whites often respond to their knowledge of the higher black crime rate by engaging in what we might term defensive stereotyping, or what some have called "rational discrimination": avoiding black neighborhoods, crossing the street to avoid an approaching black man, etc.
Importantly, to say that such discrimination is "defensive" or "rational" does not mean it is harmless. Many an innocent black man has been insulted, inconvenienced or worse by such stereotyping. That is why "racial profiling" by law-enforcement agencies is problematic even if it is an effective anticrime tactic.
But the implications of the high black crime rate are much more significant to the average black man:
- He is subject, in his encounters with whites, to the stereotyping we have
just described.
- He is more likely to be a criminal, and thus more likely to be incarcerated
and to suffer all the other disadvantages that come with having a "record."
- He is more likely to be the victim of violent crime, since most crime is
intraracial.
- He is more likely to have a father, son, brother or other relative who is a criminal or a victim of violent crime.
At least the last two of these points apply to black women as well.
Now, as long as we are living dangerously, let us conduct a thought experiment of our own. Suppose that all whites stopped thinking of crime in racial terms--that is, that their minds were washed clean of any knowledge about racially disparate crime rates. Would this be good for black people?
Perhaps it would, up to a point. It would solve the first of the four problems we've listed--that is, it would ease their encounters with whites by doing away with stereotypes based on crime rates. But it would leave untouched the underlying problem of crime in the black community. And that problem would be harder to deal with if a majority of the American population were unable even to acknowledge its existence and thus to think about how to solve it.
When white liberals berate white nonliberals for thinking about crime in racial terms, then, they are not acting in a way that actually promises to improve the lives of blacks. Rather, they are showing off their own putative moral superiority. And how seriously can we take even their implicit claims that they do not think of crime in racial terms? Is David Brock any more likely than Bill Bennett to take a midnight stroll through Anacostia? Color us skeptical.
Hypocritical Hypotheticals
On "Fox News Sunday" yesterday, Juan Williams joined the attack on
Bennett. The way in which he did it made our jaw drop, and let us count the
ways. This is from the Factiva transcript (alas, not available publicly online);
"Brit" is Brit Hume, who was defending Bennett:
What's clearly wrong is if you wanted to say, oh, gosh, you know, [1] maybe we should have abortions for every woman who has a history in her family of mental illness or anybody who has a disabled child, or [2] let's get rid of all the Christians, they certainly have been involved in lots of wars. [3] How about the Jews? You know what? [4] We have trouble with older people in this country. Clearly, they, you know, cause a great burden on our Social Security system. Maybe we should do away with some of these older people.
You know, Brit, it really speaks to a deeply racist mindset to imagine America somehow as better off if we didn't have those black people around and all those racial issues and all these--you know, so many of these blacks end up in jail, as if they're criminals because they're black. . . . He certainly said it to me. That's what . . . I heard, Brit. . . .
Brit, if I'm sitting here on a national talk show and I say, you know, [5] maybe if we killed off these white people, we wouldn't have so many mass murders in America, you'd say, Juan, are you out of your mind? . . .
Words have meaning, Brit. . . . I think what you're misunderstanding is it's the idea that he gave voice to this notion. If you were in a Nazi regime and said [6] you know, gee, you know, a lot of these Jewish people have businesses and they dominate the academy, and therefore wouldn't it be better--that's not a good idea, Brit. Not a good idea to give voice to.
No fewer than six times in a 10-minute segment, Williams did exactly what Bennett did that so offended him--namely, offer an outrageous hypothetical to illustrate a point. We're no more offended by Williams's doing so than we were by Bennett's, but Williams's hypocrisy is simply mind-boggling.
Bush:
I'm Just Wild About Harriet
And Harry's wild about her! "Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid was complimentary,
issuing a statement that said he likes [White House counsel and Justice-designate
Harriet] Miers and adding 'the Supreme Court would benefit from the addition
of a justice who has real experience as a practicing lawyer,' " the
Associated Press reports. "Reid had personally recommended that Bush consider
Miers for nomination, according to several sources familiar with the president's
consultations with individual senators."
Last Thursday Reid put out a press release titled "Democrats Demand End to Culture of Cronyism and Corruption." This week the cry of "cronyism" is being heard from conservatives unhappy that the president passed over such distinguished jurists as Edith Jones, Janice Rogers Brown, Michael McConnell and Michael Luttig to elevate his longtime colleague to the high court. Here's National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru:
It's an inspiring testament to the diversity of the president's cronies. Wearing heels is not an impediment to being a presidential crony in this administration!
David Frum calls the nomination "an unforced error" (ellipsis in original):
I worked with Harriet Miers. She's a lovely person: intelligent, honest, capable, loyal, discreet, dedicated . . . I could pile on the praise all morning. But there is no reason at all to believe either that she is a legal conservative or--and more importantly--that she has the spine and steel necessary to resist the pressures that constantly bend the American legal system toward the left.
Glenn Reynolds declares himself "underwhelmed," and that pretty well captures our feeling too. We hope we're proved wrong--but we hate it when we have to say that.
Exodus
Excitability
The one encouraging sign in all this is that Andrew Sullivan is apoplectic:
EXODUS??? Here's an excerpt from the president's announcement on Harriet Miers. Among the charities that Harriet Miers has worked for are the following:
[T]he Young Women's Christian Association, Childcare Dallas, Goodwill Industries, Exodus Ministries, Meals on Wheels and the Legal Aid Society.
Stop right there. Exodus Ministries? Does he mean this or this? We need to know.
What's all the excitement about? NR's Byron York offers a clue:
This morning Andrew Sullivan posted a comment blasting Harriet Myers [sic] and the Bush White House over Miers' charitable work for an organization called Exodus Ministries. Just writing from memory, Sullivan said something to the effect that the Miers nomination showed that the Bush White House had resurrected the Southern Strategy, only this time the targets are gay Americans.
Now, however, Sullivan appears to have removed the posting from his website. Is there someone out there who can recover it and send it to me? Thanks very much.
Sorry, Byron, we missed that post. But now we see what's going on. One link in the Sullivan post we quoted above goes to a description of Exodus Ministries, a group that works with ex-offenders in Miers's hometown of Dallas. The other one goes to the Web site of Exodus International, an Orlando, Fla.-based group that, by its description, is "called to encourage, strengthen, unify and equip Christians to minister the transforming power of the Lord Jesus Christ to those affected by homosexuality."
So Sullivan just got confused because the two groups have the same first name. Hey, it happens all the time. We'll bet several times a week "Andrew" Sullivan is mistaken for this guy.
Having
It Both Ways
From an editorial in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (intelligent as a post!):
Washington's Democratic senators split on the confirmation of John Roberts as chief justice of the United States, with Patty Murray voting to confirm and Maria Cantwell to reject. Each of them was right.
All we can say is, we wish Murray had voted "no" and Cantwell had voted "yes." It would have been more interesting to read the P-I editorial explaining why they were both wrong.
The
Clintons Waited Till Their Last Day to Steal Furniture
"Justice Roberts Takes Supreme Court Bench"--headline, Associated
Press, Oct. 3
We
Regret the Enron Adviser
Back in August, former Enron adviser Paul
Krugman penned a column for the New York Times in which he falsely asserted
that media re-re-recounts of the 2000 Florida ballots showed Al Gore wuz robbed.
The Times has been correcting that column ever since, most recently with a piece
by editorial page editor Gail Collins that appeared yesterday. The Collins piece
was a response to Times ombudsman Barney
Calame's criticism of Collins for failing to enforce her own corrections
policy (second item).
We haven't written about this dispute before because it seems beside the point. Accuracy isn't important to Krugman's readers, who are Angry Left types seeking to have their hatreds stoked. But we were amused by Collins's explanation of why she let Krugman get away without a correction (which ends up appearing at the end of her column):
Paul published a correction in his next column. Unfortunately, the correction was based on information published in The Miami Herald that was wrong and had never been formally fixed. Paul appended another correction to the Web version of his column, but asked if he could refrain from revisiting the subject yet again in print.
I agreed, feeling we had reached the point of cruelty to readers. But I was wrong.
Inaccuracies in Krugman's column? Hey, c'mon, it's time to move on! This from a guy who's still obsessing over the results of a 20th-century election.
When
Does 'Life' End?
"To More Inmates, Life Term Means Dying Behind Bars" reads a headline
in yesterday's New York Times. Since a "life" term means "for
the rest of the defendant's life," and in most cases life ends in death,
this seems obvious, no? No. It turns out that a lot of inmates have been sentenced
to life with the expectation that they'd eventually be turned loose. The Times
tells one such story:
In the winter woods near Gaines, Pa., on the day before New Year's Eve in 1969, four 15-year-olds were hunting rabbits when Charlotte Goodwin told Jackie Lee Thompson a lie. They had been having sex for about a month, and she said she was pregnant.
That angered Jackie, and he shot Charlotte three times and then drowned her in the icy waters of Pine Creek.
A few months later, Judge Charles G. Webb sentenced him to life in prison. But the judge told him:
"You will always have hope in a thing of this kind. We have found that, in the past, quite frequently, if you behave yourself, there is a good chance that you will learn a trade and you will be paroled after a few years." . . .
So exemplary is his prison record that when Mr. Thompson, now 50, asked the state pardons board to release him, the victim's father begged for his release, and a retired prison official offered Mr. Thompson a place to stay and a job.
"We can forgive him," said Duane Goodwin, Charlotte's father. "Why can't you?"
The answer to Duane Goodwin's question is that although he may be able to forgive Thompson for his loss, Charlotte Goodwin is still dead, so there is no one who can forgive her loss.
At any rate, the Times offers this explanation for the growth in life sentences that actually are life sentences:
The phenomenon is in some ways an artifact of the death penalty. Opponents of capital punishment have promoted life sentences as an alternative to execution. And as the nation's enthusiasm for the death penalty wanes amid restrictive Supreme Court rulings and a spate of death row exonerations, more states are turning to life sentences.
The implication is that if the death penalty were abolished, lifers would be treated more leniently. Lesser sentences would likely become shorter too, which means more criminals would walk the streets. Then the Times could publish articles pondering the "paradox" of fewer people behind bars even as crime rates are going up! It all strikes us as a very good argument in favor of capital punishment.
Crescent
City Carpets
"A Battle to Rebuild Looms in New Orleans"--headline, Boston Globe,
Oct. 2
Breaking
News From 1973
"Nixon Alleges Price Gouging by Gas Stations"--headline, St. Louis
Business Journal, Sept. 28
Thanks
for the Tip!--V
"Health Tip: Rats Can Be a Health Hazard"--headline, HealthDayNews,
Sept. 30
What
Would Babies Do Without Officials?
"Official: Babies Do Best With Mother"--headline, Observer (London),
Oct. 2
What
Would We Do Without OU?
"OU: Student Bomber Had History of Problems"--headline, Dallas Morning
News, Oct. 3
Cameline
Honor Killing
"A man has been sentenced to three months in jail after pleading guilty
to charges of bestiality," the Gulf News reports from the emirate of Ras
Al Khaimah:
A court official said the Bangladeshi, who worked as a driver, had been spotted going into his employer's barn on a regular basis.
His employer became suspicious as his duties did not involve him dealing with animals. . . .
The official said the driver confessed to police that he used to have sex with one particular camel. . . .
The official added the man told the prosecution that he had fallen in love with the camel and had sex with the animal.
This sort of thing goes on in America too; see this item from 2001 and this one from two months ago. But what's shocking about the Emirati story is that, whereas the man is getting three months in jail, his victim is to suffer a much worse punishment: "The camel involved in the case is to be put down in accordance with Islamic law." Here is a culture that treats its camels as badly as it treats its women.
(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to David Rule, Michael Segal, Ed Lasky, Brent Silver, Paul Dyck, Dennis Powell, Matt Irving, Jon Kurth, Jack Archer, Andrew Robinson, Greg Askins, C.E. Dobkin, Rosanne Klass, Thomas Mayer, Ethel Fenig, Peter D'Souza, Ruth Papazian, Roger Congdon, C. Sykes, Marty Daks, David Waghalter, Vincent Flynn, Richard Belzer, Dan Friedman, Roger Baumgarten, John Steele Gordon, Arnold Nelson, Ken Fallon, Jameson Campaigne, Rob Moll, Chris Hurley, Laurence Glavin, Brian Azman, Barak Moore, Marc Young and Tom Kuchan. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Michael Greve: German democracy is a bad example for Iraq.
- John Fund: Have congressional Republicans lost their way?
- Manuel Miranda: John Roberts takes his seat. What lessons did his confirmation teach?
