William Bennett, Public Moralist, Craps Out

I see in an article in Newsweek Online and in the Washington Monthly Online that William Bennett, the tsk-tsking, finger-wagging conservative moralist, author of The Book of Virtue and The Death of Outrage, has a little gambling problem.

No, make that a BIG gambling problem, with losses estimated by casinos at over eight million dollars over the past decade. Last July 12, he dropped $340,000 at Caesars in Atlantic City, and just a month ago gave up half a million bucks at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Over one two month stretch, he wired a casino 1.4 million dollars to cover his losses. The play this high-minded public intellectual evidently favors is the most mindless sort of gambling: $500 a pull slot machines and video poker machines.

Although he has built his career on castigating people for giving into their weaknesses and society for coddling them, Bennett sees no problem with his gambling. When asked about it, he spouts responses that are astounding for either their hypocrisy or their self-delusion: “I’ve gambled all my life, and it’s never been a moral issue with me. I liked church bingo when I was growing up....I view it as drinking; if you can’t handle it, don’t do it."

Though casino records show his substantial losses over the years, Bennett perceives himself as a winner: “I’ve made a lot of money and I’ve won a lot of money....Over 10 years, I’d say I’ve come out pretty close to even....You may cycle several hundred thousand dollars in an evening and net out only a few thousand.”

And there is nothing wrong with sitting in front of a slot machine between midnight and 6am 'cycling' several hundred thousand dollars? Says Bennett: “I play fairly high stakes. I adhere to the law. I don’t play the ‘milk money.’ I don’t put my family at risk, and I don’t owe anyone anything.” In other words, he's falling back on the same "it gives me pleasure and it's not hurting anyone else" arguements that he has so scathingly condemned in other people and for other vices.

Well, I have good news for you, Mr. Bennett. Outrage is not dead. I do not care that you gamble. I am, however, outraged at your hypocrisy. You devote your days to criticizing people for actions you deem immoral. You have devoted your career to shaping public policy to penalize those who don't conform to your biases. Nevertheless, you choose to spend your nights wallowing in what many thoughtful people consider and many academic studies show to be a socially harmful activity.

I also consider your waste of money to be shameful. It doesn't matter that you are wealthy enough that your vice does not threaten the "milk money," as you put it. It does not matter that you give some of your occasional winnings to charity, as you claim. It happens to be possible to gamble for several hours without cycling through hundreds of thousands of dollars. Perhaps you aren't aware that there are slot machines you can play for less than five hundred dollars a pull. With this nonchalant and unnecessarily profligate gambling away of millions of dollars, you demonstrate an arrogant and willful disdain toward the financial situation of the overwhelming majority of people on the planet. This further destroys your credibility as moral spokesman.

I think Bill Bennett's income needs to be subject to a 90% tax bracket. He clearly has too much money, and it might as well be put to better use.