Are Dems going to criticize Byrd next for being a KKK kleagle?

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Friday, Sept. 30, 2005 12:07 a.m. EDT
Bill Bennett Responds to Critics over Black Abortion
Former Reagan administration education secretary Bill Bennett blasted his critics Thursday night, including Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy, of whom Bennett said: ""I'll not take instruction from Teddy Kennedy. A young woman likely drowned because of his negligence."

Bennett is on the hot seat for remarks uttered Wednesday during his radio show, "Morning in America," where he was arguing against some of the more extreme justifications for abortion, calling them "ridiculous and morally reprehensible."

Offering an example, Bennett said:

"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.”

By Thursday afternoon, prominent Democrats had seized upon the comment.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who said last year that the Supreme Court's lone black member was "an embarrassment to the court," is demanding that Bennett "issue an immediate apology not only to African Americans but to the nation.”

Left wing Democrat Ted Kennedy, whose brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, ordered the illegal wiretapping of Martin Luther King, called Bennett a "racist."

And Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean, who suggested last year that most blacks hold menial jobs, called Bennett's comments "hateful" and "inflammatory" - and called on him to apologize.

Responding to his critics, Bennett told the Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes":

"I'll not take instruction from Teddy Kennedy. A young woman likely drowned because of his negligence . . . . He should make no judgments at all about other people. He shouldn't be in the Senate."
Neither Kennedy nor Dean nor Reid has ever condemned Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd, who rose to the rank of Grand Cyclops in the Ku Klux Klan based on his ability to recruit new members.

In an autobiography released earlier this year, Byrd said the Klan was a "fraternal group" made up of "upstanding' people" - a characterization which drew no protest from Reid, Kennedy and Dean.