Bill Bennett: Gambling Hit Pieces Won't Silence Me

NewsMax.com | 7/31/03 | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

[AGreatPer]

I do see where your coming from Palmer. After years and years of virtue. This?

After years and years of protaying to be Mr. Perfect, this guy just says, "Hey, I made a mistake". Sorry, I don't buy it.

Would my wife by it, I don't think so. Same with this dude.

As brillant as this dude is/was, GET LOST Bill Bennett.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

I thought one virtue was owning up to your mistakes, and doing better next time. What? You won't give him the chance to prove it?

The Book of Virtues, if you have ever read it, is filled with many folk-tales. Most of them have a moral to the story. To get to the moral, you have to understand the struggle that the person was going through, and the lesson that was learned in the end. If there is no moral to the story, then it would not be a lesson in what virtue is. It would be a story about what perfection is.

[mdmathis6]

I wasn't talking about Bennett...I was talking about you!



Look we're both being a little ridiculous, neither one of us are "wolves". We're head butting rams on Mt Zion. We're both gonna look ridiculous should the "Good Shepherd" decide to give us both a good shearing...and trim our horns for that matter!

[palmer]

The Book of Virtues, if you have ever read it, is filled with many folk-tales.

I haven't read it. Here's my folk tale:

Attendent: A towel Mr. Bennett? By the way, I loved your last book: 'The Restroom Attendant's Book of Virtues'
Bennett: Thanks, I'm glad you liked it. [hands attendent his towel and a twenty] Attendent: Thank you Mr. Bennett.

The moral: kiss Bennett's butt even if you haven't read the book.

[Matchett-PI]

"another "religio-conservative" icon of worship, has broken the glass in his own house... and YOU want proof... you strain at the word INSIST..."

"Insist" was your word. If you're going to accuse someone of insisting that we do as he does logical people expect you to provide the quote wherein he is insisting that very thing.

If he "insisted" as you say, it would be very easy to provide that quote.

The third time is the charm. So far, all you've been able to offer are illogical nonsequiturs.

Your credibility with critical thinkers is about shot.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Sounds like you ascribe to the moral... "Haven't read Bennett's book, tear him apart." He never Christened himself as the Virtue guru, the press did.

[palmer]

Many people on this thread, perhaps you are one, have no idea what high rolling feels like. Some have tasted the power and rejected it. Some libertarians think there is nothing wrong with it. Most are just trying to explain it away as gambling as if he was some anonymous old lady taking the bus to Atlantic City.

Gambling is only part of high rolling. The rest, the extreme excess, is what feeds Vanity. And Vanity is the most deadly sin.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

I thought the most deadly sin was rejecting God.

[palmer]

I was limiting myself to the seven.

[lawdude]

"He was right."

Can you point out one 'fraudlant act' by Mr. Bennett?

[Pan_Yans Wife]

But gambling isn't amongst the seven.

Vanity is... okay. But I suspect it is your aversion to his status, that causes you concern. As you say, the old ladies on tour buses aren't the problem. That seems to point to the fact that it is the amount of money that concerns you. And, if that is the case, you appear green with envy, not concerned with his soul.

[Cai Della]

I see him, not as a leader, but as a disgraced hypocrite.

I heard Bennett say he might go after the casino that leaked the info. If there's anything else in his past -- drugs, prostitutes, etc. -- best he doesn't agitate the big boys who would release and leak details of such behavior.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Why do you assume there are drugs and prostitutes?

With all of the reporting on the gambling story, since it broke, I would think that it would have been dug up by now.

[eccl1212]

go do your own research.
I pitched his book in the fireplace last month... and am fed up with his defenders.

he is inexcuseable... as far as I am concerned.
I doubt he used the word insist.

but he has said that people "should" do a lot of things.
to me, telling folks what they should do, is insisting.

get it? or do you want me to go out and buy some more firestarting materials to prop up your loser buddy bennett?

[eccl1212]

what you said
what I was thinking
what I expect

unless bush and co find a way to fireproof him.
even rush can't save him now...

[eccl1212]

they are waiting for the denials or the "this is the only vices I had" lines to come out.

they will wait till conservatives embrace him, to give him support, comfort, perhaps even political cover, before another "leak" occurs.

I think this story will have legs.
If it was a simple, outing, it would have never been done this early before election time.

Like newt G... and a few other conservative 'luminaries', bennett is toast. his time is over in the limelight... he needs to just sit it out for a while.

[Kevin Curry]

But when I look at "the book of virtues" of my book shelf, it is hard not to think that the book just doesn't have the same effect when you know that they guy pissed away 8 million dollars on a game that he had no chance of winning.

The content of the "Book of Virtues" is timeless and stands on its own.

[Perfesser]

Bullsh*t! Bill Bennett's authority to "moralize" has not changed one iota. Simply, because gambling is not a moral issue. It is merely a personal choice, a preference, an enjoyable activity and certainly noone else's business.
Everything he has said in the past about the declining morals of society are still true. You certainly may ask, in this case "What would Jesus do?", but don't let arrogance prompt you to pretend you know the answer.
Furthermore, IMO gambling is neither good or bad but either way the degree to which one engages in it is immaterial if you can afford it. If you cannot afford it and still do it, it is still noone' business but your own.
To continue to accept the message but not the messenger seems "..how you say, hypocritical?".

[Paleo Conservative]

But his gambling behavior vs. his moralistic preaching at americans about the importance of morals and virtues... has pretty much turned my ear away. Not from morals and virtues, but away from listening to him.

Apparently there is quite a difference of opinion on gambling between Protestants and Catholics. Protestants tend to disapprove of gambling and consider it a moral weakness. Catholics are likely to consider gambling a moral weakness if it doesn't interfere one's responsibilities to family, creditors, etc. Some would argue that as a Catholic Bill Bennett is not being hypocritical.

[Perfesser]

I suggest to all who care about virtues, morality and just "doing right" go back and review this thread and study every word of L.N.Smithee. While you're at it you'll have the opportunity to pick up some pointers on rational thinking, logic and making sense.
If you want my opinion, see above.