The authors of "Freakonomics" Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner respond to Bennett. www.freakonomics.com/2005/09...ics.html The controversy is loosely based on the caller's understanding of the arguments in the book.

Bennett isn't a fundamentalist Christian, rather he is a Roman Catholic. The distinction is somewhat important I think. Regardless his religious beliefs, my opinion of William Bennett is that he's a political hack and a pompous ass.

This bit at Talking Points Memo Cafe by Reed Hundt isn't directly related to this controversy, but it really got to the core about why I so dislike Bennett.

Hundt was working for legislation to connect schools to the Internet and tried to enlist then Secretary of Education Bennett to the cause. Hundt recalled Bennett's response in part by saying:

"He told me he would not help, because he did not want public schools to obtain new funding, new capability, new tools for success. He wanted them, he said, to fail so that they could be replaced with vouchers,charter schools, religious schools, and other forms of private education."

What a jerk!

www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005.../105329/697