That's the part that just doesn't pass the smell test for me. He is the co-founder of an organization that is against the moral pollution of gambling, yet he actively participates in it on a high-stakes level. Sounds like just another tired old example of "do as I say, not as I do." And yes, this does undermine his credibility.
It is not hypocritical, because the very definition of hypocrisy is whether a person is not following their own views, not other peoples. Other people can call it a vice all they want, but if he truly believes that gambling is not a vice, and he does it, he is not being hypocritical, regardless of whether or not every single other person in the world believes it is or not.
He doesn't have to believe it. In fact, that's really what makes him a hypocrite, the fact that he doesn't believe it. His group tells people that gambling is wrong and immoral. Saying one thing and doing another.
That would make him a hypocrite for associating with Empower America, not for gambling. If you want to join the witchhunt to discredit Bennett, that should be your argument.
He doesn't just associate with Empower America, he co founded it. So he either has to leave it, change the groups stance, or stop gambling. Wichhunting, that sounds like something Bennett might actually do.
Except that in this case, what he is saying is not different from what he is doing, is it? This group he is affiliated with may think it is immoral, but if he has said all along that he disagrees with them (and does not think gambling immoral), how can his actions be hypocritical?
Raven -- in Bennet's own mind, what he's doing may not be hypocritical but to many people it appears to be so. And as we all know, in American politics, appearance is almost everything. The casual observer will view it as such: 1. William Bennett has spent the past 20 years calling for a more moral and virtuous society. 2. He co-founded a group called Empower America which speaks out against, among other things, gambling. 3. William Bennett is a high-stakes gambler but says its okay for him because he can control it. As I said before, it doesn't pass the smell test. You can argue semantics all day long, but it won't change the fact that this self-proclaimed arbiter of American morals practices something that is often considered (apparently even by his own organization) distinctly immoral. And people will perceive that to be hypocritical.
Well, if people want to say that he appears to be a hypocrite, that's fine. I would have no problem with that. Certainly I agree that much about this man seems to be inconsistent with the "good" person image he seems to cultivate. But saying that his gambling is evidence of hypocrisy is the only thing I took issue with. I definitely wasn't trying to defend the man or argue how virtuous he is. Edit: Seeing as my post count is now a palindrome, which I think is pretty damn cool, I'm going to stop posting in this thread now so I can enjoy the palindromeness of my post count for a little while. Carry on. also wik, I mean Edit: I predict Oski will post something silly below me, but being that I am a gentleman, I shall not respond to whatever he may have to say.
Bennet has been stripped of the pretence that he represents the sort of virtue that everyone should strive for. He sounds no different than anyone else of any political stripe who has been stripped down to the naked truth of his hypocrisy. Gosh, the idea of a naked Bill Bennet is a bit frightening. Sorry if this image spoiled anyone's digestion. It's a pity that the people who publically cry out for "virtue, upstanding behavior and a good example for our children" are so often hoisted on their own petard. And there are always legions of lemmings ready to defend them. Watch out for the cliff's edge. It's a long fall to the bottom.
Bill Bennet, and people like him, could take a good example of how to live their lives from Kurt Cobain and Ian Curtis. Except that no one would miss them
As an afterward, it seems that he feels some sort of guilt or remorse about it, as he's vowed not to do it again: from drudge: from USAToday: Virtues Maven May Have Played Last Shot So now that he's decided that it was a bad example for himself, how many of the people who defended him would agree with him?
It takes courage to come out and say, "I was wrong...I'll stop it." I agree wholeheartedly it sets a bad example. Someone in the position he ultimately created for himself needs to be beyond moral reproach, or he risks having his entire message go empty. Gambling...to this degree...casts doubt on his work. I think that's crappy...but in the world of public perception and media image, it's true. And he knows it.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2082526/ Bill Bennett's Bad Bet The bookmaker of virtues. By Michael Kinsley Posted Sunday, May 4, 2003, at 5:34 PM PT Sinners have long cherished the fantasy that William Bennett, the virtue magnate, might be among our number. The news over the weekend—that Bennett's $50,000 sermons and best-selling moral instruction manuals have financed a multimillion dollar gambling habit—has lit a lamp of happiness in even the darkest hearts. As the joyous word spread, crack flowed like water through inner-city streets, family court judges began handing out free divorces, children lit bonfires of The Book of Virtues, More Virtuous Virtues, Who Cheesed My Virtue?, Moral Tails: Virtue for Dogs, etc. And cynics everywhere thought, for just a moment: Maybe there is a God after all. If there were a Pulitzer Prize for schadenfreude (joy in the suffering of others), Newsweek's Jonathan Alter and Joshua Green of the Washington Monthly would surely deserve it for bringing us this story. They are shoo-ins for the public service category in any event. Schadenfreude is an unvirtuous emotion of which we should be ashamed. Bill Bennett himself was always full of sorrow when forced to point out the moral failings of other public figures. But the flaws of his critics don't absolve Bennett of his own. . . . 3) He's doing no harm to himself. From the information in Alter's and Green's articles, Bennett seems to be in deep denial about this. If it's true that he's lost $8 million in gambling casinos over 10 years, that surely is addictive or compulsive behavior no matter how good virtue has been to him financially. He claims to have won more than he has lost, which is virtually (that word again!) impossible playing the machines as Bennett apparently does. If he's not in denial, then he's simply lying, which is a definite non-virtue. And he's spraying smarm like the worst kind of cornered politician—telling the Washington Post, for example, that his gambling habit started with "church bingo." Even as an innocent hobby, playing the slots is about as far as you can get from the image Bennett paints of his notion of the Good Life. Surely even a high-roller can't "cycle through" $8 million so quickly that family, church, and community don't suffer. There are preachers who can preach an ideal they don't themselves meet and even use their own weaknesses as part of the lesson. Bill Bennett has not been such a preacher. He is smug, disdainful, intolerant. He gambled on bluster, and lost.
I like how these media reports tend to celebrate this discovery about his gambling. "Wow. I hope he's really wrecking his life over this so we can write better stories!" I guess that's the media...I shouldn't expect much more. Or much less.
-John 8:7 Bennett has been casting stones for quite a while now. The media, as a rule, feel it is their duty to tear down people who build themselves up to be something that they are not, and I agree with them. Iwonder how many people who share this "disgust of the media" had the same opinion when Bill Clinton was getting a hummer in the Oval Office, or (perhaps more appropriately) when Jessie Jackson was getting outed for his extramarital affair. Read the thread on McCarthy to see what happens when the media doesn't delight in its role of saying "The Emperor Has No Clothes."
How much more did you expect of Bennet? Or did you expect much less. As someone who's children has a well-meaning Aunt who has showered them with tracts written by the good Mr. Bennet, I find it disturbing that yet another "icon" of the Religious/Right of the Republican Party has gone astray. Not because I'm a Democrat, although I am, but because of the people he has mislead like my kids' Aunt. I should be accustomed to this feeling of cynicism by now... it's just a media creation, afterall. And you know the media, folks... don't believe a thing it reports unless it agrees with your way of thinking. For years I've found Bennet a pontificating blowhard, but I thought he was a sincere one. Now I've been enlightened.
