Booking Bennett

NRO ^ | 5/5/2003 | Jonah Goldberg

[familyofman]

Bill "Bet the House" Bennett should have moved out of his glass house before he started throwing stones at the less "moral" among us.

[mr.pink]

I don't know what everyone's so exited about. It's not like the money Virtuous Bill threw away was going to mobsters or organized crime, or even indirectly funding any of the social misery those types support. ;o)

The funny part of this is the addiction of choice. The self enamored "society's going to hell in a handbasket" blowhard was hooked on such a unsophisticated loser's game....the gambling equivlant of a sniffing glue from a paper bag.

Can't wait to read his next lecture book.

[Mr. Bird]

I have always enjoyed listening and watching Bennett discuss the issues of the day. I think he's a smart, no-nonsense guy. When I first heard the gambling story (7 years after it broke in '96 by the way), I was crestfallen. Not that he had gambled, though. I was sure that somewhere along the line he had spoken out against gambling and had been living one way and earning money promoting another. But he hadn't done that. So now I get to listen to everyone with an axe to grind deliver cheap shots on the guy. That's what saddens me now.

Luckily, honest journalists will continue to apply the same standards to all public officials in all walks of life. Or maybe this is just the hatchet job it always looked like....

[Mr. Mojo]

I find it hard to recall a more asinine and intellectually shameless "gotcha" story in my adult lifetime.

I find it hard to fathom a more asinine and intellectually barren activity than playing slot machines and video poker, although if that's the way he prefers to spend his time and money, that's his business.

[pbear8]

Yes, you've seen him on H & C each week.

[MEGoody]

Funny, liberals think it is perfectly 'moral' for a woman to kill her own baby and call it 'choice.' But some guy placing some bets LEGALLY in Vegas is 'immoral'.

They continue to contradict themselves daily.

The American public isn't going to take this seriously. It'll die soon enough and the libs will be scrambling for some other thing to wail about.

[JohnGalt]

He was a liberal Democrat prior to coming to the Reagan White House.


He hires ghostwriters to write his books and speeches, but passes it off as his own.

http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/HardRight/HardRight030701pf.htm

He speaks in front of morally unsavory groups.
http://www.consumersunion.org/finance/bennettwc1099.htm

He is a phony.

[dfwgator]

I agree the William Bennett has the right to gamble if he wants. But this is a guy who has made TONS of money from talking about virtue. Well, just as with the Dixie Chicks, you have a right to do as you please, but you are not immune from the consequences. Bennett's days of making money off of virtue are over.

[Mr. Mojo]

I wonder why a smart guy like Bennett doesn't play real poker. I'd have a lot more respect for him if he did.

[MEGoody]

"Bill has no credibility with many of us who are old enough to remember when Bill was the doper Liberal boyfriend of Janis Joplin."

So you didn't do some things in your younger years that don't fit the person you've become now?

[goldstategop]

If Bennett were President now, Ramsey Clark would be launching a drive for his impeachment. And liberals would without blushing use exactly the opposite of the arguments they made back in 1998 to get him hounded out of office.

[borkrules]

The American public isn't going to take this seriously.

The American Public isn't even going to notice this story.

This one is strictly for a couple of audiences, all of which spend way too much time thinking about political/cultural issues (like me!): leftists and libertarians who (a)know who the heck Bill Bennett is and (b)hate Bennett; and Church Lady Conservatives (CLC's) who demand saintly perfection of all their warriors and will collude in the destruction of any who fall short of the glory of God and yet have dared to propound a vision of morality and goodness that does not flow from a "do your own thing" mentality.

[Mr. Mojo]

I agree, the hyprocrisy stinks to hell. His lectures about the "sins" of sex outside of marriage and smoking a joint in the privacy of one's own home will ring a big more hollow now. ....If that's indeed possible :)

[JohnGalt]

Excellent point.

He is even a phony in the gambling community.

Horses and football for me, thanks, but who the hell plays the slots at $500 a pull-- a man who did not work for his money.

[borkrules]

What a shame.

Who do you propose to replace Bill Bennett, or shall all of us sinners simply sit down and STFU about virtue, since we all are guilty of something?

[goldstategop]

If he commit adultery, you'd be right. Where's the beef? :)

[Ken H]

There isn't any evidence that he lost $8 million, only that he bought $8 million in chips over a decade. If, as is more likely, his losses are half that...

Jonah is postulating here that Bennett lost somewhere around $4 million.

But he is overlooking the fact that Bennett claimed he "pretty much broke even over a decade".

If Jonah is correct, then Bill Bennett is not being truthful.

Telling a lie about what is otherwise a minor vice may be Bennett's biggest problem here.

[Mr. Bird]

In 1996 Margaret Carlson reported that Bennett won $60,000 in a single outing in Las Vegas. She was working for Newsweek. Newsweek "broke" this story in May '03. Any questions? It's a hatchet job. If we found out Bennett liked a triple stack of pancakes with a shot of bourbon, would people be incensed, or just confused?

This is a double whammy for Newsweek, because not only did he gamble, he did so with such large sums of money. What an inconsiderate, rich white guy. He could have donated that money to the local food kitchen, rather than use it to entertain himself.

Because it is entertainment, isn't it? In Las Vegas, dropping money in a slot machine has all the moral or amoral equivalence of watching a UNLV basketball game, or the National Finals Rodeo.

And lastly, when are we going to arrest the SCOTUS justices for their weekly poker game????

[JohnGalt]

How 'bout your parents, your pastor, or St Augustine?

[Mr. Mojo]

Sex outside of marriage does NOT = adultery. The former involves two non-married people.