Bill Bennett: Gambling Hit Pieces Won't Silence Me

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

[kattracks]

Conservative ethicist Bill Bennett emerged from a self imposed two month silence on Tuesday to announce that he wasn't going to let inaccurate stories about his gambling habits planted by "people who were trying to take me out" drive him from public life.

"I'm back and I will be more outspoken than ever," Bennett told nationally syndicated radio host Sean Hannity, after accepting full responsibility for the betting brouhaha.

"What I did that was wrong was that in the last few years I started to play big money, really big money. Maybe not too much in terms of what I was making, but too much in terms of who I am. And I was not being a good example."

The leading conservative spokesman revealed that his habit had become an issue at home, telling Hannity, "It got excessive. Mrs. Bennett got on me. She was right. And this story hit and it was all out there for everyone to see."

Bennett said he was faced with the choice of either changing his behavior or changing his standards. "So, in this case, the excessive gambling is over," he pledged.

He noted, however, that there was an agenda driving the gambling story that went beyond legitimate journalism, observing, "Some of these people were trying to take me out, saying, 'You're gone, man, you're out of public life.' And I don't not accept that."

He complained also that whoever leaked his gambling records to the Newsweek and the Washington Monthly had violated his privacy.

"[My gambling] wasn't a secret. But you do not expect your financial records, whether it's at a bank, a casino or anyplace, to be displayed all over the place."

The former Bush administration drug czar added, "Las Vegas has an ad out on TV and the radio, saying, 'What happens here, stays here.' Well, not in my case. That was really a rotten thing to do."

A spokesman for Caesar's Boardwalk in Atlantic City - one of the casinos named by Newsweek and the Washington Monthly - told NewsMax in May that they take every precaution to preserve the privacy of high rollers, and that the release of Bennett's records was the subject of an internal investigation.

The two publications that hyped the gambling scandal said they were relying on "40 pages of internal casino documents." But the target of the twin hit pieces said they got more than a few factual details wrong.

"A lot of what they put out was inaccurate - about losing $8 million and all that. There's no way that happened."

Bennett said the sources of the illicitly obtained records "released information to reporters that was wrong about totals, about wins and losses. It was really an attempt to do me in."

He stressed that he wasn't swearing off all wagering, telling Hannity, "Since there will be people doing the micrometer on me, I just want to be clear. I do want to be able to bet the [Buffalo] Bills in the Super Bowl."

When Hannity closed the interview by praising Bennett for taking responsibility for the imbroglio, the ethicist quipped, "You can bet on it."

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

Media Bias

[palmer]

Never done it, but it sounds about right.

[Bluntpoint]

Would I then get credit for hiring one less migrant worker by employing Bennett?

[palmer]

Realistically, if you hire him you'll probably need a few extra migrants to wash his feet, etc.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Yup - its one thing if he goes a couple of times a year, eats a nice dinner, spends a little table time and sees a show, maybe does another couple of hours before calling it a night (and goes to bed at something approaching normal sleeping time). Its another if he's doing it at 3 AM in the same time zone where he lives.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Oh, he wouldn't have a chance.

[Bluntpoint]

Also, after work horseshoes and cornhole my well go above 25 cents a game for the mexicans.

Playing till 5:00 in the morning may be tough also.

[PBRSTREETGANG]

Bill Bennett: Gambling Hit Pieces Won't Silence Me

It's not a question of "silencing" him. It's a question of who's going to continue to pay attention.

[Bluntpoint]

It's not a question of "silencing" him. It's a question of who's going to continue to pay attention.

"Bingo!!!"

_{Yeah, I see the irony of saying "bingo."}

[Diverdogz]

But his "personal repsonsibility" is limited to the fact that he paid his gambling debts. He didn't see the error of his ways until his exposure as a gambling addict threatened his lucrative public speaking carreer. For a long time, he insulted all of our collective intelligence by insisting that he didn't lose very much money - playing slot machines!

In my opinion, he is only now admitting that he lost a massive amount of money to salvage what is left of a wrecked carreer and tarnished reputation. Understandable, but it doesn't exactly rise to a noble level of "taking responsibility". Remember, he tried to lie his way out of it first.

[Bluntpoint]

What a person does in private is his business.

That said, I may still may have an interest in that private business.

If Rush is privately "seeing" Barbara Streisand at some posh resort, that may affect his audience base.

[L.N. Smithee]

I'm no liberal, and I think that people can spend thier money however they want. 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.

Did you think he was perfect before, and this shattered your image of him?

Which part of the book is invalidated because of what we now know?

[Diverdogz]

...and would you think less of Rush then, if he whined that the No-Tell Motel infact did tell?

Bennett needs to cheese to go with his whine.

[palmer]

Which part of the book is invalidated because of what we now know?

Probably just the title. He could call it "the book of borrowed concepts"

[mdmathis6]

My point is that many conservatives "turned" on Bennett when the "gambling" issue hit the public media...many here in Freeperland as well, calling him a "hypocrite". To the extent that the exposure has induced in Bennett a desire to stop gambling, that is all well and good. But I don't see where he has suffered any extreme moral lapse, and we conservatives fall into the trap that the amoralistic librerals love to see us fall into when we start to "eat our own".

[L.N. Smithee]

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.

I don't listen to Swaggart, or brother bishop buggeror either...

Comparing Bennett to Swaggart is beyond the pale.

Bennett spent too much time using disposable dollars to gamble. Swaggart stole the ministry of Jim Bakker on the grounds that Bakker's affair with Jessica Hahn made him unfit to run a TV ministry empire, and then it was discovered that Swaggart was rendezvousing with cheap whores in motels.

Get some perspective.

[L.N. Smithee]

Remember, he tried to lie his way out of it first.

What did he "lie" about? Specifics would be good.

[L.N. Smithee]

Probably just the title. He could call it "the book of borrowed concepts"

Fine. Tear the cover of the book, and you've got no problem.

[palmer]

Comparing Bennett to Swaggart is beyond the pale.

The point of Swaggart, et al, is that just because you can parrot morality doesn't mean you are a moral person. It's our fault for not sending Swaggart more money, so he could have gone and done some high rolling instead of scrounging around in a cheap motel.

[palmer]

As long as his name is no longer on it.

[L.N. Smithee]

It's our fault for not sending Swaggart more money, so he could have gone and done some high rolling instead of scrounging around in a cheap motel.

I hope you know that makes no sense whatsoever.