Do Right-Wingers Ever Defend Their Own? (Joseph J. Sabia, Cornell Review)

Cornell Review ^ | 5/11/2003 | Joseph J. Sabia

[TLBSHOW]

Do Right-Wingers Ever Defend Their Own?

Did I miss the memo again? I am mystified by right-wing pundits’ reactions to the attempted lynching of Bill Bennett. Do these people ever defend their own? Ever? A few months back, right-wing pundits at National Review and The Weekly Standard began to pressure Trent Lott into resigning as Senate Majority Leader because he told an “offensive” joke at Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday party. Almost no conservative journalists—save the excommunicated Pat Buchanan and Bob Novak—defended Lott from unfair, outrageous, and unproven charges of racism. Rather, they piled on and locked arms with Jesse Jackson, Maxine Waters, and Tom Daschle to oust Lott.

And now we have the case of Bill Bennett. In a hit piece that might well have been titled “We Really, Really Hate Bill Bennett,” Jonathan Alter and Joshua Green reported that Bennett has—GASP!—gambled. Apparently, we are supposed to extrapolate from this revelation that Bennett no longer has the moral authority to urge people to refrain from freebasing cocaine.

Alter and Green despise public virtue. They do not like judgments of bad behavior, so they attack Bennett in the hopes of discrediting him personally. The journalistic standards at Newsweek are best exemplified by the inclusion of this quote in the article:

“There’s a term in the trade for his kind of gambler,” says a casino source who has witnessed Bennett at the high-limit slots in the wee hours. “We call them losers.”

Read those lines several times and let them sink in. They are quoting an anonymous casino source that calls Bennett a “loser.” Is this a fifth grade rank-out session or Newsweek? How can there be any doubt that this article was anything but a hit piece?

Even though Bennett has spoken publicly about his love for the casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City, Alter and Green insinuate that Bennett had something to hide:

”And Bennett must have worried about news of his habit leaking out. His customer profile at one casino lists an address that corresponds to Empower.org, the Web site of Empower America, the group Bennett cochairs. But typed across the form are the words: NO CONTACT AT RES OR BIZ!!!”

Holy cow!!! Alter and Green found the smoking gun—Bennett didn’t want solicitations!!! There is a term in the trade for these kinds of journalists. We call them losers.

Bill Bennett did not do anything illegal. By the standards of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, he did nothing immoral. He was not hypocritical—he was quite open about his gambling and never suggested that reasonable gambling was immoral.

This is really quite simple: The Left is trying to rid the public square of all individuals who speak of morality. Altar and Green want the Bennett story to serve as notice to future moral crusaders: If you make judgments about behaviors or suggest that there are problems with the culture, we will dig through your garbage and expose any imperfections for all the world to see. We will embarrass and humiliate you. And even if you have not been hypocritical, we will smear you anyway because we will create “the appearance of hypocrisy.”

These people want to make Bill Bennett into a national joke—a punchline. Now more than ever, Bennett deserves the full backing of conservatives. This is a critical battle of the culture war. The Left is trying to turn Bill Bennett into Jimmy Swaggart and conservatives have an obligation to defend him.

But yet again, the latest generation of mealy-mouthed right-wing pundits has been withholding full support. On This Week, George Will argued that Bennett’s sin was immoderation. On Fox News, Fred Barnes and Brit Hume said that Bennett’s actions were hypocritical and constitute a public relations nightmare. Cal Thomas said that scrutiny into Bennett’s life is warranted given his crusade for morality in the public sphere.

Andrew Sullivan was invited on CNN’s Reliable Sources to defend Bennett. His defense was unusual: He blamed the Christian Right for its intrusion into peoples’ private lives and claimed that Bennett had not written his own books. Sullivan concluded by saying that he wasn’t particularly happy to have to defend Bennett.

The National Review made some tame points about hypocrisy not being too bad a thing. They also ran a guest column from a libertarian who hates public discussions of morality and wants to legalize LSD. That’s about as strong a defense as you get from NR these days.

The only mistake Bill Bennett has made is to publicly declare that he will quit gambling. Obviously he decided to quit because he had embarrassed some of his Christian colleagues from denominations that view gambling as immoral. These are the same colleagues that included gambling among a long list of characteristics used to define Empower America’s Index of Leading Culture Indicators. Bennett’s deference toward his colleagues is a nice touch, but it has had the same effect as Trent Lott going on BET—the appearance of public capitulation.

Perhaps Bennett would have had a stronger backbone had some of his conservative friends had the moral fortitude to defend him publicly. Where is the loyalty? I guess it’s true—to paraphrase Harry Truman, if you’re in the conservative movement nowadays and you want a friend, get a dog.

[TLBSHOW]

An excellent truth story.

[Arkinsaw]

Well, I have seen the other side of the coin where Democrats will support their people no matter what. Wouldn't really want to adopt that policy.

[FairOpinion]

"I guess it’s true—to paraphrase Harry Truman, if you’re in the conservative movement nowadays and you want a friend, get a dog."

---

Sad, but true. Conservatives happily cut off their noses to spite their face, in an effort to present themselves as "fair and unbiases",while the Democrats are laughing their heads off, how easy it is to con the Republicans into attacking and disowning their own.

[TLBSHOW]

I guess it’s true—to paraphrase Harry Truman, if you’re in the conservative movement nowadays and you want a friend, get a dog.

snip

“There’s a term in the trade for his kind of gambler,” says a casino source who has witnessed Bennett at the high-limit slots in the wee hours. “We call them losers.”

Read those lines several times and let them sink in. They are quoting an anonymous casino source that calls Bennett a “loser.” Is this a fifth grade rank-out session or Newsweek? How can there be any doubt that this article was anything but a hit piece?

snip

This is really quite simple: The Left is trying to rid the public square of all individuals who speak of morality. Altar and Green want the Bennett story to serve as notice to future moral crusaders: If you make judgments about behaviors or suggest that there are problems with the culture, we will dig through your garbage and expose any imperfections for all the world to see. We will embarrass and humiliate you. And even if you have not been hypocritical, we will smear you anyway because we will create “the appearance of hypocrisy.”

snip

But yet again, the latest generation of mealy-mouthed right-wing pundits has been withholding full support. On This Week, George Will argued that Bennett’s sin was immoderation. On Fox News, Fred Barnes and Brit Hume said that Bennett’s actions were hypocritical and constitute a public relations nightmare. Cal Thomas said that scrutiny into Bennett’s life is warranted given his crusade for morality in the public sphere.

Andrew Sullivan was invited on CNN’s Reliable Sources to defend Bennett. His defense was unusual: He blamed the Christian Right for its intrusion into peoples’ private lives and claimed that Bennett had not written his own books. Sullivan concluded by saying that he wasn’t particularly happy to have to defend Bennett.

The National Review made some tame points about hypocrisy not being too bad a thing. They also ran a guest column from a libertarian who hates public discussions of morality and wants to legalize LSD. That’s about as strong a defense as you get from NR these days.

,,,,,,
Bottom line

if you’re in the conservative movement nowadays and you want a friend, get a dog.

Joseph J. Sabia, Cornell Review

[TLBSHOW]

ain't that the truth.......

[FairOpinion]

Exactly. The Democrats support their own, no matter how eggregious the actions of "their own", the Republicans attack and destroy their own, no matter how trivial the charges. The Republicans are doing the Democrats job for them.

Newt was a threat to Democrat, remember he gave us the first Republican House in 40 years,so when Democrats attacked him with phony charges, the Republicans couldn't wait to get on the bandwagon. Same with Lott, now people can be happy with Frist who really rolls over for Democrats.
Now they attack Bennett.
And of course they attacked Bush,it's amazing that Republicans actually stood up for Bush.

[gcruse]

"Hey, Arlen, whazzzup?"
"Orrin, good to see ya.  How are you enjoying
Atlantic City so far?"
"It's great man.  This idea of conservatives giving more
than lip service to Bill Bennett is a blast.  Can you
believe it?  Half the Senate is here gambling millions
in a show of  solidarity."
"Well, Arlen I think it was a stroke of genius, but it wasn't
me who thought of it.  I got the idea from Carville, actually."
"You gotta be kidding me."
"No, not at all.  See that long line over there?"
"Yeah."
"That leads into Monica Lewinsky's room   The Democrats are showing loyalty to Clinton."

[FairOpinion]

If Republicans -- conservatives and moderate conservatives -- would stick together, because while we may have our disagreement inside the Republican/conservative movement, but we are still "family" and have a whole heck of lot more common than with the Democrats, they would run into a brick wall and couldn't get anywhere.

But they discovered, that the "divide and conquer" strategy is working just fine, so they keep trying to set Republicans against each other, and many obligingly take the bait.

Loot at the way the gun rights supporters were ready to stay home in 2004 an let a RAT get elected, instead of applying a little thinking, that the assault ban bill will never get out of the House, which is the right way to kill it, instead of letting Congress to pass the buck, and demanding that Bush veto it, and commit political suicide in the process,helping to elect a RAT.

I think conservatives really need to stop and think a few steps ahead, and not fall victim to the RAT's baiting and "divide and conquer" strategy.

[Fred Mertz]

This Joseph Sabia guy gets it. I wonder if he's the son of Jack (Giacomo) Sabia from northern Virginia?

I've also been wondering something about the alleged $8 million in gambling that Bennett's allegedly rung up over the years.

I haven't followed this story closely because I used to be a Catholic bingo play.

However, when I went to the FRN event in Las Vegas, I went to the old strip on Sunday afternoon. I wasn't in a gambling mood, but I went to pick up several collectible die for a friend in Kentucky.

While there I think the Pauli Girl beer was on sale for one or two dollars. My brother was with me and told me I only had to put a ten dollar bill in the video poker game in front of my bar stool for a "free" beer. I told him $1 beer is a good deal, thank you very much.

My brother threw some money in the video poker machine and got a "free" beer while losing ten bucks in about five minutes.

After about thirty minutes, I opened my squeaky wallet and drew out a ten spot. I wasn't wanting to gamble, but to make a long story short that ten dollar bill lasted me nearly three hours. I'd win twenty, lose fifteen....win thirty, lose twenty-five....and so on. I went from the video poker to the slots, from casino to casino, wherever I could risk twenty-five cents a pop.

I suppose my rambling question is this: If I had a "club card" or whatever they're called, I'm fairly certain my gambling that afternoon would have registered about $300 or more spent. However, I only spent $10 and I paid for my beer too. Is my assumption on this correct? Any one is welcome to answer. Thank you.

Pardon the ramble.

[LurkerNoMore!]

You got it right.

By the way, where in the heck was I?

[Intolerant in NJ]

Newt...Lott...Bennett...and then there was Santorum, who received weak at best defense from his "colleagues" during his recent dustup with the gays - another paraphrase worth consideration would be a slight revision of Reagan's "Eleventh Commandment" - "Thou shalt not speak evil of another conservative"....

[isthisnickcool]

Bill Bennett holds no elected office. Any weight people gave Bennett was their choice. Personally, I liked Bennett's messages but didn't need his words for my moral compass. Bennett sold himself as something and people bought it. If they continue to, fine. If not, no biggie. Not from here.

Does anyone really think that Bill Bennett by promoting what he has in the past actually changed anyone? Like someone heard Bennett on TV or read one of his books or heard him speak and suddenly found "virtue"? Nah! Wait, I take that back. His "Book of Virtues" was animated into stories on PBS. That might have made a little difference with some kids. Maybe.

What's amusing about this article is the mention of the name Andrew Sullivan. Many here like Sullivan. Because he spouts the conservative line so well. The conservative message rolls off Sullivan's tongue. At least while he does not have another mans XXXX in his mouth. If that's not a concern to others then what's the big deal with Bennett having all his positive qualities along with his own "deviation"? Gambling.

Oddly enough, if one pretends that Bennett had the same "quirk" Andrew Sullivan has then the left would not be saying a damn thing.

[Lester Moore]

"...Republicans attack and destroy their own, no matter how trivial the charges. The Republicans are doing the Democrats job for them.

Newt was a threat to Democrat, remember he gave us the first Republican House in 40 years,so when Democrats attacked him with phony charges, the Republicans couldn't wait to get on the bandwagon. Same with Lott, now people can be happy with Frist who really rolls over for Democrats.

Now they attack Bennett. And of course they attacked Bush,it's amazing that Republicans actually stood up for Bush.

Newt was a pot trying to call the kettle black. He had an immoral adulterous relationship going on at the same time he was dogging Clinton for his.

For someone moralizing as Bennett had, gambling away millions of dollars was totally inappropriate. The moralizing is ok, it's the irresponsible gambling that is wrong.

Let the housecleaning continue, out with all the trash! Do it right or get out! I do not live by the 'victory at any cost' creed.

[FairOpinion]

Reagan's "Eleventh Commandment" - "Thou shalt not speak evil of another conservative"....
---

And some people said Reagan wasn't smart... He put it very well and he was absolutely right.

If only people would remember it and act on it...

[Lijahsbubbe]

As someone said on another thread, BINGO!

[CanisMajor2002]

We can either hold ourselves accountable, or stoop so low as Maxine Waters defending Robert Byrd.

Unfortunately Big Media doesn't hold the same integrity standard to everyone, or even itself.

[Fred Mertz]

By the way, where in the heck was I?

After church and lunch I think we dumped you back at your hotel. Thanks for buying us lunch! sucker.........hehe

[LurkerNoMore!]

I was ditched by the Brothers Mertz!

[FairOpinion]

"For someone moralizing as Bennett had, gambling away millions of dollars was totally inappropriate. The moralizing is ok, it's the irresponsible gambling that is wrong."

---
It clearly was NOT irresponsible gambling, or he'd be on skid row. As someone pointed out, you can gamble a lot, all with the same money. They said, he went to some 10 casinoes in 12 years or the other way around. Sounds like he took a few days every year and went gambling. He gambled his own money and obviously didn't lose more than he could afford. He hurt nobody, it was for entertainment, so what's the big deal?

Gamble is a vice, if done in excess. To Bennet a few million may not be any more than a few hundred dollars to an average person, who gambles away five hundred dollars every year on a vacation to Las Vegas.