BAKERSFIELD — About 100 people in this conservative rural town protested on Saturday the first public speech by former Education Secretary William Bennett since he made a comment linking the crime rate and the abortion of black babies on his radio show.

Bennett used his afternoon appearance before the Bakersfield Business Conference's nearly 4,500 attendees to say his remark in late September had its meaning reversed by distorted media reports.

"I was putting forward a bad argument in order to put it down," Bennett said, to sustained applause from the audience. "They reported and emphasized only the abhorrent argument, not my shooting it down."

But he did not apologize, and to local black leaders protesting outside the convention center, his silence was eloquent.

"He heard our outrage and our hurt, but he didn't say he was sorry," said Irma Carson, a Bakersfield councilwoman who along with other black community leaders met with Bennett before his speech. "We didn't take (his comment) out of context, because there's no context in which those comments would fit."

Dozens of black and white local residents marched around the convention center, many saying they wanted to make sure Bennett didn't feel welcome in their town.

Bernita Jenkins, a community activist who helped organize the protest, said she heard the former drug czar was coming to Bakersfield and thought, "Oh, no, not in my back yard."

"I wanted him to cancel, to apologize, something," Jenkins said. "Instead, he met with us for 58 minutes, and didn't say anything."

Signs in the crowd had sayings like "Crime goes down when poverty does, not when babies are aborted."

Bennett's comment on his show, "Morning in America," came as an answer to a caller's question regarding the hypothesis of a recent book, which proposed that an increase in the abortion rate has helped bring down the crime rate.

Bennett said, "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."

Bennett, who is an abortion opponent, continued on to say that this 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."

The comments stirred up much controversy, and led Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and other Democrats to demand an apology.

Some of Bennett's fellow Republicans also found his choice of words distasteful.

J.C. Watts, a former football player and congressman from Oklahoma said, "Bill's a good friend, but what he said is flat-out wrong. I hate that he said that, and I think he will be marginalized if he doesn't try to correct it."

But many in the largely white crowd attending Saturday's conference said it was clear to them that Bennett was using an extreme example that did not represent his views to make a point.

Doretha Jones heard Bennett's speech, and said afterward that although it was unfortunately true that both the crime rate and the abortion rate were disproportionately high in the black community, "it's obvious that (Bennett's comment) was just a discussion of a possibility that could be espoused by human beings who don't have any feelings for babies or for blacks."

Jones had brought copies of Bennett's "The Book of Virtues," which she said she'd like to share with the protesters, who remained outside.

"The most important part of communicating is listening," she said.

Other speakers at the 21st annual Bakersfield Business Conference included former U.S. Senator and Attorney General John Ashcroft, former presidential candidate Steve Forbes and retired General Tommy Franks.

On the Net:

Bakersfield Business Conference: http://www.bpcbakbusconf.com