“I don't want to suggest something that would seem farcical to a lot of your audience,” Bill Bennett told Fox News anchor Bret Baier, moments after suggesting that an exorcist might be needed to prevent mass shootings.
Bennett’s comments were just the latest in the ridiculous lengths Fox pundits have gone in order to avoid putting any blame on guns in the July 4th mass shooting in Highland Park, Illinois, the latest shocking episode in America's epidemic of gun violence.
Bennett is no expert in mass shootings but that did not stop him from acting as if he were.
BENNETT: [F]rankly, I gotta tell ya, I’ve been thinking and studying about all these cases. I’m not sure we’re going deep enough.
Um, yeah, I think you need police. You need police. You need parents, for sure. You need schools. You need to clean up social media. You need all that. But you know, you may need an exorcist, too. Before your audience shakes its head on that, if you look at these boys, these men, these young men, they have deeply spiritual problems. Deeply. If you go into the labyrinthine caves of the internet way down and I don't recommend it, it's ugly stuff and these guys dwell there. They live there. They drench themselves in it and it's as ugly and evil as it gets.
Where are the ministers? Where are the rabbis? The priests? Look, I don't want to suggest something that would seem farcical to a lot of your audience, but I don't think that the domain of religion ought to be involved here. It's a deeply spiritual void, I think, that these young men have in their hearts and their souls, and I think it needs to be addressed.
And I don’t we get at it, frankly, with these externalities, as important as some of them may be and they may be.
You can watch it below, from the July 6, 2022 Special Report.
I also found Bennett’s “domain of religion” comment puzzling. I thought he might have meant that an exorcism is a non-denominational treatment (even though it is associated with the Catholic Church).
Bennett appears to misspeak. After asking “Where are the ministers? Where are the rabbis? The priests?” in response to this onslaught of demons, Bennett says “I don’t think that the domain of religion ought to be involved here.” The questions and the statement don’t jibe. Who is supposed the “address….the void” if not religion?
Bennett’s panel not noticing this— let alone clarifying it— immediately gives Baier and his “media critic” buddy Howard Kurtz inferior marks in broadcast journalism. Besides that, Baier presses Bennett for no concrete suggestion. One is left to wonder, does Bennett mean medicare should cover exorcisms?
I think it’s striking that Fox continues to give voice to Bill “the bettor” Bennett apparently simply because, like Tucker, he projects that he is one of our betters (he wrote the Book of Virtues, for God’s sake!). Apparently in the Fox News memory hole is Bennett’s April 2020 pseudo-authoritative prognostication on COVID deaths, which was off by a solid order of magnitude.
https://www.newshounds.us/bill_bennett_trump_instincts_better_than_medical_experts_covid_19_pandemic_041320
Why does Fox News not treat Bennett like they treated Dick Morris in the wake of Morris’ botched election call in 2012?