Opera Nut

It came out this weekend that William Bennett, author of "The Book of Virtues" and right wing holier-than-thou republican Christian, is a compulsive gambler who has gambled away more than EIGHT MILLION DOLLARS.

He said it was OK because he wasn't starving his family, they had all the money they needed........ must be nice to be so filthy rich.

Stephen Maturin

I do love it so!

The Man of Virtues Has a Vice

Bennett insists that he's won about as much as he's lost over the years, but . . .

That makes two of us.

Of course, gambling is A-OK for Bill Bennett, but it's just plain EVIL for the unwashed masses:

ZiprHead

Damn! No wonder he needs a tax cut.

lisarea

OK. so this didn't surprise me or anything. These things are to be expected. I imagine Martha Stewart sitting around on a couch with the cushions all askew, surrounded by dirty socks and various other debris, eating cold beans out of a can. I'll bet Greenspan doesn't balance his checkbook and gets screwed on his mortgages and car loans. If anything surprises me about this story, it's the seeming lack of whores and smack.

What DOES surprise me are his responses. What the HELL?

Something like this comes out, and you're William Bennett, I'd think you'd have a couple of options:

1. "See? I told you so? Even I, William Bennett, paragon of virtue, beacon of respectability for the nation, am susceptible to the EVILS of sin!"

2. Abject humility. Giant "I suck" press conferences and talk show appearances, begging forgiveness for being a hypocritical asshole. Offers to refund the purchase price of his book, maybe wearing some kind of dunce hat in public for a while.

3. A coherent, voodoo economics style argument for the importance of gambling to the US economy.

Does he do this? No. No. No. What does he do?

1. Puts on some kind of pimp act, all talking bout his bling bling and how he's keeping his fine Compton bitches in Ho-Hos and 40s, so it ain't no thang.

2. Claims, "Well, it's OK, cause, like, I totally broke even." I ain't no big ethimical smartypants like Mr. Bennett, but I fail to see the point of this argument. I mean, even aside from the fact that it's clearly bullshit. So what if it were true? Is he seriously arguing that gambling is OK as long as you mostly win? Let's set about applying that general principle all willy-nilly, why don't we?

I guess it just bothers me all the more that all these evil supervillains dotting our political landscape these days are so damned STUPID.

And don't give me that crap about Poindexter being some evil genius, either. I have this sneaking suspicion he's gotten that rep just because his name is Poindexter.

Godless Dave

That bothers me too. At least with Nixon the evil was effective. Sure his foreign policy was misguided, but he went about it like he knew what he was doing. Nowadays we get a bunch of little evil guys bumbling around like the hyenas in "The Lion King". Their evil schemes seem like they were dreamed up by a secret club of disturbed 12-year-olds in a treehouse. It's like the difference between the evil stepmother in Snow White and Yosemite Sam. Normally I'd be more afraid of the stepmother, but Sam went and got himself some really nice guns.

Bill Snedden

Whoo hoo! I'm psychic!

When this story first broke, I said to myself, "Wow. What a surprise. Another member of the Religious Reich who can't walk the walk but wants to force others to do so. I'll bet he tries to rationalize it some way or another..."

I have to go buy some lottery tickets, now.

lisarea

Yabbut. I don't think he's even TRYING to rationalize it.

I've honestly come to believe that these people (does "These People" take initial caps?) are so far gone on the whole concept of being some anointed ruling class that they can't even wrap their brains around the idea of adhering to the tenets they're foisting on stupid guys like us who have to have real jobs and pay taxes and drive our own cars.

They seem to all the world to believe they are inherently superior to everyone else. Which is basically why it bugs me that they're so danged blanged stupid.

Jewel

Brains? These people have brains?? They certainly seem to be counting on the rest of humanity to have checked theirs at the church door...

Do as I say, not as I do. I know what's best for you. And other BS.

I don't find it a bit surprising to find that these people are hypocrits.

Stephen Maturin

And that, as they say, sums it up just about perfectly. Auric Goldfinger this contemporary crop ain't. However, they do have access to unlimited firepower, and that makes the current gaggle of dumbasses the most dangerous ever.

Oh, I'd say we're pretty much to the willy-nilly gambling point already. Witness Operation Iraqi Freedom. Of course, it helps a great deal when you set the bar for winning so low (squashing a Third World military force, in this case). It'll be a great many years before anyone can draw a rational conclusion about whether or not that was a "win" in any meaningful sense, but by that time folks like Bennett and Poindexter will be sharing Ronald Reagan's fate or lounging around atop inaccessibly high piles of money while indulging their every whim. Either way, they'll be light years beyond giving a rat's hairy ass.

Tom Sawyer

Did anyone see the Daily Show's bit about this last night?

He congradulated William Bennett for not apologizing and standing up to the morality witch hunters like William Bennett.

It was hilarious