[moneyrunner]

An excellent summary of the Bennett Gambling controversy. I hope all you moralizers examine your own souls.

[borkrules]

It's the final word on the subject, IMO.

[mabelkitty]

I hope Las Vegas loses money - big time. I've yet to hear anybody from that gambling mecca strike out about the LEGALITY of gambling, and how they were going to pull out the stops to find out how the information was stolen (as that is what happened) and prosecute to the fullest extent.

You have to understand that this information is also coupled with credit card numbers, bank information, driver's license, home address, etc. This was not merely a "he gambled alot" breach.

If he hadn't signed up for the Slot Card, nobody would have been the wiser.

[JohnGalt]

Who are you folks kidding?

Bennett has been revealed as a fraud and rightfully so. He hires ghostwriters to write his speeches and books and then claims them to be original works. He smokes three packs a day, but moralizes about 'drugs.' He was Drug Czar during the crack explosion; test scores headed down every year he was the Education Czar.

He's been a fraud since he came into the Reagan Administration, when he attempted to cover up the fact that he was a Democrat. He is a phony and while this is a strange story to bust him on, I am perplexed at the number of his defenders.

[goldstategop]

Yup. And why are liberals so mad at what Bill Bennett does? Its not like they believe in right and wrong in the first place and secondly they could care less about virtue.

[onedoug]

As I hope to be worthy of God's love and redemption, I personally don't gamble.

[goldstategop]

The liberals are "outing" Bennett to justify and excuse Billy Jeff's crimes by cheapening them through a dose of good old-fashioned moral equivalence and just plain lying. That's the reason they see Bennett's private life as fair game. I tell you all, what's really sickening is the same people who insist we keep our nose out of the presidential felon's private affairs are the same people who insist we ought to censure a decent man for not being a complete saint in his private life. How's that for hypocrisy? Liberals, thy name is legion.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Liberals are Evil Socialists!]

Let's see now, Bennett has disclosed that he has had gambling wins/losses of $8 million over the LAST DECADE. That translates to Approx. $800,000 per year. Now here's the rub. He spends a bit of time in a few casinos for several hours in front of video poker machines. If you don't know anything about how this is reported to the IRS, let yourself be educated. An electronic monitoring card is used to register ALL wins agaisnt ALL losses. So, the longer a person plays, the more the wins and losses add up. Therefore, over that amount of time, playing sometimes until 6 am in the morning, Bennett would ring up a lot of pulls. It is that aggregate that is reported. It also keeps track of winnings. Anyone who has ever played video poker will know that it mostly evens out. In truth, the net result from his hobby is that he has not won or lost a net of $8 million, or $800,000 per year. It indicates the amount of time he has spent playing his hobby/game. Sure beats sexually harassing government interns and employees on the job, lying about it and then obstructing justice over it. That is hypocrisy, not Bennett's legal form of enterntainment. Anyway, Bennett isn't President. That unfortunate bit of history is played by the original scumbag himself: Cliton.

[sandydipper]

I like Bill Bennett.

[robertpaulsen]

With Bill Bennett it's gambling -- everyone else it's "gaming".

[LaGrone]

His gambling habit didn't make it to the "Book of Virtues". I always thought Bennett made good logical sense. Frankly, I'm disappointed.

[cgk]

Excellent article. Thank you for posting it.

[clintonh8r]

Jonah nails it.

[Mustang]

Great post, moneyrunner. Jonah nailed it right on target!

Re: the "stolen info" statement. No doubt it was. I never signed a FOIA release authorization when I cashed in a bunch of "mega" chips in our country's "Legal" adult gambling establishments.

This has legs. To all: Call Vegas, Foxwoods, New Orleans, Mobile, Atlantic City and demand they release their privacy statement obligations. (the IRS doesn't count, when one wins "big", the house has you sign some forms, which are then sent to the federal "confiscation" department, aka the IRS, Me thinks it's still embedded with latent socialists and Toon rump-swabs).

This entire episode smacks of the leftist-democRAT, ant-conservative hate machine's machinations. btw, I have never met Bill Bennett, nor sent one red-cent to "Empower America"...but I stand with him against this leftist attempt and their politics of "personal destruction"...

Mustang sends from "Malpaso" News.

[steve-b]

Oh, puh-leeze. The bottom line is that Bennett has made a career out of sanctimoniously hectoring -- and, in some cases, using state coercion against -- people who engage in vices other than the one that happens to be his personal favorite.