You anti-WOD people will hate Bennett to the end of time and this non-story is tailor made for you to excercise some of that rage.
I think Bennett's positions on the WOD are overblown and I don't agree with all of what he says.
But as the article says, he's a big sloppy Irish Catholic conservative that has pointed folks in the right direction in other areas.
And I think "hypocrisy" is waaaaay down the list of "sins". In fact, the elevation of hypocrisy into the pantheon of unforgivable offenses is one of vice's greatest tactics in the defeat of virtue. Take that to the bank. It's made it acceptable to reject the good in pursuit of the unattainable perfect.
I could care less that he was caught gambling, and I am not a libertarian. And yet, I certainly despise Bill Bennett. The man is an utter fraud. He passes himself off as an author and a philosopher, but is neither. He would get huge book contracts, and then hire a guy to do the actual writing, for a relative pittance. He's no more an author than Hillary Clinton is. Why was Bennett's name on the cover, rather than the real author?
Bennett actually has a Ph.D. in philosophy (from the Univ. of Texas), but it was for a quickie dissertation. Intellectually, he's always been a nullity. If you ever see an article with his byline on it, someone else wrote it. He's always been a politician, in the worst sense of the word, and although academia is dominated by lefty political hacks, it has some has some neocon hacks, too, and they take care that the Bill Bennetts of the world are properly "credentialed."
In case you're wondering, I've never met the guy, and have no personal axe to grind. I actually like the guy once upon a time, until I started reading up on him. He's a poseur; no more, no less.