Bennett’s high-horse act has been about behavior as much as results.
When discussing the vices he doesn’t indulge, I think Bennett would argue that it’s not the results alone that are debilitating, it’s also the actual practice: drug taking is bad even if you can afford it and aren’t addicted. Porn is bad even if it’s legal, even if everyone involved is a consenting adult, even if porn users all have happy marriages.
Assuming that’s been his attitude all along, I think it’s absolutely appropriate that his gambling record is out in the open.
Plus he’s a tiny-minded little slug who wouldn’t have a job if he didn’t have friends in high places. Fuck him with $500 in $10 chips.
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “Games of chance [card games, etc.] or wagers are not in themselves contrary to justice. They become morally unacceptable when they deprive someone of what is necessary to provide for one’s needs and those of others.”
Mr. Bennett, a Catholic, apparently feels the same way:
He is following his faith’s teaching on the matter. How is that being a hypocrite?
Oh spare me. If the facts had been that Bennett had, over a period of years, made trips to casinos where he lost an average of $200 per trip, totaling $4,000 over eight years, this would be a nonstory. This isn’t about Bennett gambling, or even about Bennett gambling on a regular basis.
Plenty of people non-gambling-addicted people enjoy driving to AC from New York on a Saturday every now and again. For most of those folks, the money they drop is just part of the cost of the entertainment they derive – they plan on losing, and it’s a nice bonus if they happen to come out ahead. Assuming Bennett has the cash to absorb those losses, how is this any different?
Remarkable thing is how long it has been uncomented on by the media.
He was a contender for the presidency once and nobody (I remember anyway) mentioned it. Did (say) the Washington Post know about this and keep quiet? Did they simply not know?
How odd.
This leads to the question of why it was published now.
I do not see how he could have become such a widely recognized morality and virtues czar if there had been any significant number of unflattering items reported over the years. So, not only is he a regular member of an often cliquish media, his treatment over the years, I would assume, has been overwhelmingly positive and pretty much devoid of anything negative.
Should it not therefore take a bit more than one unflattering story appearing in three media outlets before adding Bennett to the list of unfortunate and innocent victims pilloried by the evil, ruthless and biased liberal media?
Sheesh. I thought liberals were supposed to be the overly sensitive wimpy ones.
It sure didn’t take long for the right wing media to excuse this. For example, Jonathan Last of the Weekly Standard has already said that this particular private behavior is far more acceptable than the private behavior that involves adultery because:
Then, of course he then goes on to bash Clinton and his supporters, specifically the Washington Monthly and Charles Peters. Despite the fact that Peters has not publicly commented on this, and Washington Monthly’s claim of Bennett’s hypocrisy is
which seems far from the “… clubbing Bennett with the hypocrisy stick” as is the accusation of Weekly Standard.
In Bennett’s book Death of Outrage (pgs 8 and 9 to which I can’t directly link) when in discussing the argument that Clinton’s private indiscretions are irrelevant to his public governing abilities, Bennett claims that
Now personally I don’t give two hoots about Bennett’s gambling habits. As long as he can afford it, and his family doesn’t care, why should I? (Then again, I really didn’t care about Clinton getting his knob polished either) However, in light of Bennett’s words and actions, I believe that he should expect some fall-out from this, and that the right-wing shouldn’t be too surprised.
Ooooh, dat debbil libruhl media! Its the Jews! Or the hippies! Or the trial lawyers! Or the lesbians! No, its the Jewish hippie lesbian trial lawyers!
At least part of this rubs up against the conservative shibboleth of the Divine Sanctity of Private Property, that is, once you wrap your grubby mitts around the booty, its yours.
Myself, if I had 8 megabucks and didn’t turn over at least half of it to Doctors Without Borders, or Paul’s Shriner Hospitals or some such, I would regard myself as an utter scumbag.
Pissing it away like that shows the moral clarity of a garden slug.
When I first read the OP, before reading the linked article, I thought we were talking about the Bill Bennett who was one of the founders/CEO of Circus Circus Enterprises, and was wondering what the bill deal about him gambling was. Shows where my mind is.
Anyway, THIS Bill Bennett is an ass (apparently, so was the other Bennett, but in a different way). I agree with light strand’s final paragraph. Gambling in and of itself doesn’t make him any more of an ass than he already is, but with the high-and-mighty morals stance he takes on everything else, he shouldn’t really be surprised about the fallout.
Out of curiosity, Dewey: when Clinton was staining the intern’s dresses, did you put that in perspective the way you’re doing with Bennett’s gambling? “Look, it’s not so bad in and of itself, and he didn’t put his family in the poorhouse, so what’s the big deal?”
I agree with you that his gambling isn’t such a big deal, though I can also see how much it smacks of hypocrisy to many. I find the lining up along a left-right axis to be more irritating, actually.
I just love how the right-wingers/Republican apologists of the board and in the press are trying to rationalize this away while once again excoriating Clinton.
Look, if you want to argue that gambling with large sums of money is immoral, and that therefore Bennett is immoral, fine. But that doesn’t make Bennett hypocritical. It would only be hypocritical if Bennett had earlier stated that gambling was per se immoral. He hasn’t. Thus the charge of hypocrisy is misplaced.
FTR, I’ve never cared much about whose orifices Clinton slipped his willie into. I do care about lying under oath. That’s a horse of a different color. Should Bennett ever lie under oath about his gambling, then I’ll consider him in the same ballpark as Clinton.
Perhaps it’s because the media doesn’t have to do much chasing when the left-wingers are constantly being accused and vilified by the right wing moralizers themselves.
If you want an insight into why many here think he’s a hypocrite, then it’s because he’s held himself up as a moral exemplar, including recognizing the damaging effects of gambling (witness his opposition to expanded gambling), while indulging in something that is generally considered a vice. It seems like he’s granting himself a moral exception. You can disagree with this, but surely you can see how many can think this.
As for Clinton, I wasn’t comparing the two directly, nor equating Bennett’s gambling with Clinton’s lying under oath. I was equating Bennett’s gambling with Clinton’s infidelities, something that I’ve heard many on the right decry in and of itself. Were you as generous with Clinton on the topic of getting blowjobs in the oval office as you are with Bennett having a gambling habit while writing books about the moral decline of America?
I mean, surely you can see how there’s something fishy about Bennett excusing his own moderate participation in a vice while hectoring Americans about their own vices, moderate or not.
Dewey if you check my post above you will see that the Weekly Standard did not mention that lying under oath was less forgivable than gambling. It explicitly says that adultery is more unforgivable. They brought it up, not any of the other sources I’ve seen. Perhaps it’s just a preemptive strike.
As I’ve said before, I don’t care, but I fail to understand the surprise.
Is it hypocritical for someone who drinks socially to take stances against alcoholism and to suggest that building a liquor store on every block might not be the best idea in the world?
Did you not read the second paragraph of my post (you know, the post where you quoted the first paragraph)? Allow me to refresh your memory: “FTR, I’ve never cared much about whose orifices Clinton slipped his willie into.”
And if you’ll check my post, you’ll see that the poster I was responding to (hansel) did not ask me “what did the Weekly Standard think of Clinton’s sexual piccadiloes?” No, no – I was asked “what did I think of Clinton’s sexual piccadiloes.”
Does it appear hypocritical for someone who is a moralist on everything else to be silent on his own sins? Yes, it does. It’s not on the scale of Bennett having a three-needle-a-day smack habit while he was drug czar, but surely you see the source of irritation among some.