Thanks for all your emails. I’m sticking with my basic and first position which is that, absent any direct hypocrisy or illegality, Bill Bennett deserves to be left alone. I have two further thoughts, however. Bennett was a critical figure arguing that the “character” issue be used relentlessly against Bill Clinton. Now some of that was legit – Bill Clinton’s public character, his lying, untrustworthiness and abuse of his office were important things to notice and criticize. But some of the rhetoric went further than that, and Bennett clearly egged it on. I’m thinking not about genuine public issues of abuse of power, sexual harassment and perjury, but private adultery and womanizing, which were linked in Clinton’s case but not inseparable. (In so far as the American Spectator did the latter but not the former, it was also in the wrong. But you cannot have published David Brock for so long and not have also engaged in purely private moralizing and gossip. However: see R. Emmett Tyrell’s response on the Letters Page.) Here’s an email I got from a Republican political op who worked with Bennett first hand:
In 1996, Bob Dole, you may remember, resisted making a frontal attack on Bill Clinton’s character, partly because, truth be told, he actually liked him, partly because he knew instinctively it was a dangerous game to play, and partly because research showed it absolutely would backfire. (This was pre-Monica, but there was certainly enough material to work with had he chosen to do so.-He didn’t.)-Bill Bennett had the title of Vice Chairman, or maybe even Chairman of the campaign – I forget.-Even though he knew that the campaign was determined to avoid a frontal attack on Clinton’s character, he pushed it in the media and publicly trashed the campaign of which he was a part for insufficient zeal. To find out that Bill Bennett has a gambling jones this serious – and it is serious, Andrew; he’s not betting the milk money but spending night after night flushing that amount of wealth down the drain is pathological – makes one reflect on all the positions he has taken over time in which he has placed himself in a morally superior place.-On a human level, Bill Bennett is an extremely bright, engaging, fun, tough, admirable guy.-But he is also, it is now apparent, not someone who should position himself as superior to anyone, not least of which, I truly hate to say it, our former president.
Point taken.
GAMBLING AND THE GODLY: It’s also true that Bennett hasn’t simply made occasional statements about the need for virtuous living, but has made it into a campaign, defined himself by it, made a fortune off it, and has never, so far as I know, criticized the religious far right for its puritanical opposition to gambling. He has nothing to apologize for in this instance, in my opinion, but at some point, I wish he’d turn his attention to some of the extremist moralizing among his allies on the far right. Sometimes it takes being a victim of their tirades to see where they’re coming from. The most interesting part of this flap, however, will not be Bennett’s response, if indeed he thinks he needs to provide one. It will be how Kenneth Connor of the Family Research Center, Gary Bauer, James Dobson and other theocrats respond to this “miserable sinner” in their midst. Let me know if you see any statements of condemnation. It will be a simple test of how principled or political these religious groups and politicians are.
The Dish 