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The Man of Virtues Has a Vice (Bill Bennett gambles)
Newsweek ^ | 1/2/03 | Jonathan Alter and Joshua Green

Posted on 05/02/2003 1:27:57 PM PDT by Callahan

May 2 — In his best-selling anthology, “The Book of Virtues,” William J. Bennett writes: “We should know that too much of anything, even a good thing, may prove to be our undoing…[We] need to set definite boundaries on our appetites.”

DOES BENNETT? The popular author, lecturer and Republican Party activist speaks out, often indignantly, about almost every moral issue except one-gambling. It’s not hard to see why. According to casino documents, Bennett is a “preferred customer” in at least four venues in Atlantic City and Las Vegas, betting millions of dollars over the last decade. His games of choice: video poker and slot machines, some at $500 a pull. With a revolving line of credit of at least $200,000 at each casino, Bennett, former drug czar and Secretary of Education under Presidents Reagan and Bush, doesn’t have to bring money when he shows up at a casino.

(link for full article)


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News
KEYWORDS: bennett; gambling; williamjbennett
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To: mabelkitty
millions of dollars gambled, wasted, trashed, thrown away... by a man who preaches responsibility...no...he is not a man I would follow into a burning house...he lied..he betrayed...and he is not worthy to be my leader...friend yes...leader no way.

A leader has to be a better man than myself...not my moral equivallent, that is why I'm pissed at him.

241 posted on 05/02/2003 3:15:42 PM PDT by Porterville (Screw the grammar, full posting ahead.)
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To: mabelkitty
Man, I hope and pray this gets HUGE media play this week-end.

Can I ask why? Why does this rate as an important story? A man engages in a legal form of recreation that he can easily afford, and this is a major news event?

242 posted on 05/02/2003 3:16:01 PM PDT by CA Conservative
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To: george wythe
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

I bet you tell people you can walk on water, as well.
243 posted on 05/02/2003 3:16:18 PM PDT by mabelkitty
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To: mabelkitty
One more thing, don't be calling people names... That is spineless.
244 posted on 05/02/2003 3:16:41 PM PDT by Porterville (Screw the grammar, full posting ahead.)
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To: mabelkitty
Yeah.

I don't even LIKE Bill Bennet. I always turn him off when he's on cable. I don't mind that he preaches morality; I think it is a good thing that we started selling morality as something to be aspired to. For too long, we have made the cheats, layabouts, and reprobates heroes; when I was a kid, the hero you aspired to be was Ferris Buelher.

Try getting away with that in real life.

Wouldn't be prudent.

But that said, I find Bennett a bore, a scold, and a bit of a prig. I just can't bear to listen to him pontificate, even though I think the pontification is probably a good thing, over all.

So I'm not his biggest fan.

But I just refuse to get worked up about gambling.

Look, unless the man is gambling so much that he has to go see the Pit Boss at the Desert Inn and convince him to give the money back as an advertising ploy, it falls under that part of morality called Ain't None of My Goddamned Buisness.
245 posted on 05/02/2003 3:17:40 PM PDT by Warhead W-88
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To: Warhead W-88
Who's Sky Masterston???
246 posted on 05/02/2003 3:18:17 PM PDT by Porterville (Screw the grammar, full posting ahead.)
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To: Porterville
Why is it you need a "leader"?

Can you not be guided by free will that you need someone to "lead" you or tell you what to do?

Your type scares me because you actually vote.
247 posted on 05/02/2003 3:19:07 PM PDT by mabelkitty
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To: Warhead W-88
Drinking isn't necessarily bad; but girly-drinks are sinful.

There's something vaugely "gay" even about blended whiskeys, IMHO.

(Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

248 posted on 05/02/2003 3:19:13 PM PDT by Stultis
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To: discostu
Well, then, apparently you favor the gambling part of poker, as opposed to the card-play part.

That's a big part of poker, of course. Which is why poker isn't poker without high stakes gambling.
249 posted on 05/02/2003 3:19:47 PM PDT by Warhead W-88
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To: DannyTN
If you applied the same "Standard bearer must be perfect" to everything we do. There would be no standards. The US couldn't even advocate for democracy, when things like Palm Beach happen and democratic vote buying occur.

It wasn't so much calling for a purity test as posing that politically this wasn't very strategic.

250 posted on 05/02/2003 3:20:08 PM PDT by amused (Republicans for Sharpton!)
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To: Stone Mountain
Well for one thing there's the willful violation of the law, right or wrong laws are the written rules of our society and willful violation of them shows a disrepect for our society and weakens the ties of society by helping to create a society full of secrets and distrust. Then there's the black market economy that feeds it, on the profit chain of drugs there is always a murderer eventually, there aren't good people involved in the black market and knowingly creating a living for bad people is clearly not moral behavior. Now if marijauna were legal then responsible non-addictive non-destructive use of them wouldn't be immoral behavior. IMHO anyway.
251 posted on 05/02/2003 3:20:38 PM PDT by discostu (A cow don't make ham)
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To: Porterville
I think he runs the floating craps-game in Guys & Dolls, but I'm not certain of that.

He talks in Daymon Runyon slang like "Peddle it elsewhere."

I assume.

I've never seen the play.
252 posted on 05/02/2003 3:20:55 PM PDT by Warhead W-88
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To: CA Conservative
Gambling is a HUGE recreational hobby, investment sector, and a strong economic growth industry.

If the media demonizes him for gambling, do you know how many people in this country will go nuts? This is going to back fire so hard on the Left it will feel like a punch in the stomach.
253 posted on 05/02/2003 3:21:06 PM PDT by mabelkitty
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To: zoyd
You sit at a table, drink alcohol, and risk large sums of money for your own adrenalin rush. Nothing moral about that. Nothing virtuous about that, when you could be putting that money to good use, IF YOU WERE A MORAL PERSON.

And just who gets to decide what is a good use for my money? You are sounding very much like a liberal troll, my friend. If it is my money, it is up to me to decide how I want to spend it. If I choose to build a bonfire with it, that is up to me.

254 posted on 05/02/2003 3:21:56 PM PDT by CA Conservative
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To: mabelkitty
Throwin' out the insults??? Why??? Why do you do that???

He wants to be a moral leader and he can't be decent enough not to rub the salts in the wounds of the people he is suppose to represent??

I need leaders to follow, I know that, that is what makes me a good leader.

Bush has leaders also, Priest, the Pope, everyone but Dictators.

I vote for leaders, who know they are responsible for their actions.

255 posted on 05/02/2003 3:22:03 PM PDT by Porterville (Screw the grammar, full posting ahead.)
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To: Stultis
Yeah. That whole "blended" thing is very suspect.

A real man needs no blending or smoothing. A real man should be able to drink battery acid without flinching.
256 posted on 05/02/2003 3:22:15 PM PDT by Warhead W-88
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To: Porterville
You don't be condemning people for doing something you don't like. That is nasty!
257 posted on 05/02/2003 3:22:16 PM PDT by mabelkitty
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To: Warhead W-88
You're right...very few play video poker perfectly and very few check the payback chart on jacks or better to make sure they play a 9/6 machine. The casinos keep the free booze flowing and sooner or later most players lose the discipline to get a 99% return.

There, however, are thousands of smart video poker players that do surprisingly well and millions that play poorly.
258 posted on 05/02/2003 3:22:21 PM PDT by Kahuna
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To: Warhead W-88
I like him because he always looks like he has a either a disgusted look on his face or he just smelled a fart.

He is so uncomfortable on camera and he doesn't hide it. I think that's cool.

Other than that, I know he has a brother. That's really all. I haven't been paying attention to him since we took Congress.
259 posted on 05/02/2003 3:23:49 PM PDT by mabelkitty
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To: mabelkitty
Fine by me if you like him. I certainly don't hate him; I'm just not really interested in him.

To me he's like Gandhi. I acknowedge that what he did might be good and all, but honestly, I have no intention of sitting through his boring 2 hour movie.
260 posted on 05/02/2003 3:25:27 PM PDT by Warhead W-88
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