Month: October 2005

Steven Levitt essentially defends Bennett. But he adds an interesting point:

There is one thing I would take Bennett to task for: first saying that he doesn’t believe our abortion-crime hypothesis but then revealing that he does believe it with his comments about black babies. You can’t have it both ways.

And I think, pondering again Bennett’s remarks, that by reflexively relating race to an argument he simultaneously rejects, his remarks do indeed have a tinge of racism in their assumptions. I’d still give him a pass – for an off-the-cuff response on a hypothetical policy whose immoriality he immediately emphasized.

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “It’s always been clear to me that you have a fine mind and the ability to write, but these talents are attenuated by your unremitting homosexuality – the emotional need to have aberrant sex. Clearly, your perversion and deviancy have affected your reason. Thus, you have no credibility as an observer of the current social and political climate. You are simply another frustrated fag who is trying very hard to legitimize his sexual perversion by striking out against anyone who wants to maintain thousands of years of normalcy. God, what must the average and decent American do to put the sexual deviates in their place (in concentration camps or mental institutions).”

(Every now and again, I post emails like these, which I receive regularly, not to grandstand but simply to remind people, especially in relatively enlightened circles, what pockets of hatred still exist in our culture).

“From traveling throughout Illinois and more recently around the country, I can tell you that Americans are suspicious of labels and suspicious of jargon. They don’t think George Bush is mean-spirited or prejudiced, but have become aware that his administration is irresponsible and often incompetent. They don’t think that corporations are inherently evil (a lot of them work in corporations), but they recognize that big business, unchecked, can fix the game to the detriment of working people and small entrepreneurs. They don’t think America is an imperialist brute, but are angry that the case to invade Iraq was exaggerated, are worried that we have unnecessarily alienated existing and potential allies around the world, and are ashamed by events like those at Abu Ghraib which violate our ideals as a country.

It’s this non-ideological lens through which much of the country viewed Judge Roberts’ confirmation hearings. A majority of folks, including a number of Democrats and Independents, don’t think that John Roberts is an ideologue bent on overturning every vestige of civil rights and civil liberties protections in our possession. Instead, they have good reason to believe he is a conservative judge who is (like it or not) within the mainstream of American jurisprudence, a judge appointed by a conservative president who could have done much worse (and probably, I fear, may do worse with the next nominee).” – Barack Obama, taking on the moonbats at DailyKos.