A thought experiment

I see that William Bennett, one of our nation's self-appointed Ministers of Virtue, has resigned from some position he holds because of the unfair politicization and taking-out-of-context of something stupid that he said. Well, that's the expected response, I suppose; and anyway, what I found objectionable wasn't that Bennett would frame an outrageous thought experiment, since there's nothing inherently wrong with such stuff, but the underlying assumptions behind the thought experiment he framed.

And speaking of thought experiments, here's one: What would the reaction of the Right be if, say, Howard Dean were to publicly say:

I do know that it’s true that if you wanted to increase school test scores, you could — if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every baby in Arkansas, Texas, Kansas and Georgia, and your test scores would go up. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your test scores would go up. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky.

Hmmm. I wonder if those "You're taking me out of context" defense would fly. Probably not, and rightly so.

(And before anyone gets uppity, I just made this example up off the top of my head and tried to pick a stereotype that everybody knows to be utterly false.)