No Debatetime at the Apollo for Bloomberg

Mayor Bloomberg, eager to show that he does care about black people, denounced conservative William Bennett's remarks that abortionsin the black community would cause the crime rate to go down. Well, duh, of course the Mayor would do that: William Bennett is a complete idiot and the Mayor needs to shore up as many minority votes as possible. Mayoral opponent Fernando Ferrer and his most prominent African-American endorser, Reverend Al Sharpton, have been criitcizing the Mayor for not wanting to attend a debate on Thursday at the Apollo Theatre. Sharpton calls Bloomberg's tactics "drive-by" campaigning while Ferrer says he's hiding behind his $100 million in campaign spending. The Mayor's campaign claims that Bloomberg would rather appear in debates closer to election day (November 8), and on debates that will be on broadcast networks; his spokesman says, "With all due respect to Rev. Sharpton, the debate on NY1 -- leave the Apollo Theater aside -- it has a very limited audience; only people who are cable subscribers can see that debate." That's a burn for NY1, and Newsday, which is sponsoring the debate! Ferrer will be left to debate with the conservative party's Thomas Ognibene; together, they will have a Bloomberg hate-in.

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By Jen Chung in News on October 3, 2005 8:12 AM

Comments [rss]

nola

Scott - Apologized for what? He was making a point about the inadequacy of utilitarian arguments against abortion. If you want to expose the potential brutality of this kind of reasoning, doesn't it make sense to use a harsh example?

123 fake - This topic must be a little above your head. I said it is wrong to accuse people of racism - do you disagree? That is different than "telling us about racism". I would assume we all agree racism is a bad thing and that is why I don't slapdash accusations the way Jen does.

Too bad Jen hasn't had the guts to respond to this thread but isn't that typical of liberal cowards?

123 fake st

nola is telling us about racism? what a laugh

Scott Sala

yeah, the idiot charge is mean and highly misattributed. Bennett could have spoken differently, and should have, but he was making the argument in a great socio-economic discussion.

He was saying we should never allow economics to trump morality. He believes abortion is wrong (maybe that's why you call him an idiot?) and for people to imply abortions could affect social security or even - his example - crime is wrong.

Still, he should have apologized.

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Man, some of you people take this blog stuff way too seriously. Don't you have jobs?

Anyway, keep on doin' your thing Jen.

nola

Sorry Jen, but you get the complete idiot award for repeating this ridiculous lie about Bennett. As the poster above said, he was using this as an example of utilitarian arguments that can be made in favor of abortion. He rejected utilitarian arguments in general and this one specifically. Please don't accuse people of racism without knowing the facts.

Gringcorp

Pat Kiernan on NY1 this morning, and I paraphrase: "What, so Bloomberg thinks that cable TV hasn't arrived yet?"

dhex

um, that's not what the paper or resultant chapter in freakonomics says.

it says the abortion rate went down because those children most likely to be aborted were also those most likely to fit in a profile that results in criminal behavior as they grew up. that and the crime rate fell just as those children who were aborted would have become adults.

yes, bennett's point was that abortion as a utilitarian device is stupid, but his example was, to say the least, poorly worded.

Anonymous

Hello, brilliant Gothamist! Thanks for being so Polemic!

William Bennet was merely criticizing the book "Freakanomics" which DOES indirectly make the claim the legalized abortion reduced crime because it eliminated black babies. The man believes abortion is wrong, and was pointing out the danger of taking the claims of Freakanomics to the next logical step!

Stop repeating senseless, hateful lies!