Bill Bennett

Former drug czar and education secretary William Bennett fought back after his radio-show comments about the crime rate and the abortion of black babies drew charges of racism from Democratic leaders, including Sen. Edward Kennedy.

Bennett, author of "The Book of Virtues," said in a television interview last night he won't "take instruction" from Kennedy, who "shouldn't be in the Senate."

Replying to a caller's question on his "Morning in America" program Wednesday, Bennett challenged a recent book's hypothesis that one reason for the drop in crime is the rise in abortion.

"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 ... that would be an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky," said Bennett.

In a chorus of reponses, Kennedy called Bennett a "racist," and demands for an apology came from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean.

Bennett insists his point was that the idea of supporting abortion to reduce crime was "morally reprehensible."

In an interview last night on the Fox News Channel's "Hannity and Colmes," Bennett fired back at the Democratic leaders.

"I'll not take instruction from Teddy Kennedy," he said. "A young woman likely drowned because of his negligence. I'll take no moral instruction with him. That's much worse than legal gambling what Teddy Kennedy did. He should make no judgments at all about people. He shouldn't be in the Senate."

Bennett continued, "As far as racist and all this other stuff, I'll put my record up with Howard Dean, with Harry Reid."

But Bennett also received criticism from Republicans, including the White House.

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

Last night, Bennett explained to co-host Alan Colmes the context of his remarks was a radio show discussing "bad arguments in regard to abortion":

A caller suggested he was opposed to abortion because he said if there were more babies there would be, eventually, more tax payers and a larger GNP, a smaller deficit.

I said you want to be careful with that kind of argument because someone could postulate a situation where child's not likely to be a productive taxpayer. I said, arguments in which you take something that's far out, like the GNP and try to connect it up with abortion are tricky.

I said make the case of abortion on the basis of life and protecting life. I said abortion is invoked in another way; you could make an argument that if you wanted to lower the crime rate, you saw the quote; you could practice abortion in very large numbers. You could do it in the black community; you could do it in other places. This is, by the way, the subject of a book for economics by a professor at Yale.

I said, however, if you were to practice that, widespread abortion in the black community or any other community, it would be ridiculous, impossible, and I appreciate you putting it on the screen, morally reprehensible.

So I think morally reprehensible, when that is included in the quote makes it perfectly clear what my position is. A number of the people whom you have cited as condemning me have not made the inclusion of that remark, and so they make it seem, Alan, as if I am supporting such a monstrous idea, which of course I don't.