Month: May 2003

Jim Glassman makes a persuasive case in defense of Bill Bennett. Again, my only beef is with Bennett’s close association with moral scolds and puritans. But he isn’t guilty by association and has nothing to answer for. And again, if the standard for anyone in public life trying to support morality and virtue is that they be saints – even according to other people’s standards – then we’ll have no upholding of morality at all. That’s the point of privacy in a liberal society. Without it, moral standards in our public life become all but impossible. What I really want to see is Bennett debate Dobson on the morality of gambling. But that won’t happen, will it?

No doubt where the religious right stands on this:

“… the epidemic of gambling activity that has now penetrated every corner of American culture.”

“…the number of adults and adolescents who suffer from problem or pathological gambling is rising.”

“Clearly, gambling is a destroyer that ruins lives and wrecks families.”

“… a direct link between problem and pathological gambling and divorce, child abuse, domestic violence, bankruptcy, crime and suicide.”

“More than 15.4 million adults and adolescents meet the technical criteria of those disorders.”

“Today, the silence of most of our leaders about the risks of gambling is deafening. It is well past time for a Paul Revere to sound the alarm. Gambling is hazardous to your – to our – health!”

“There can be no doubt from the evidence that gambling – like many compulsive behaviors – is addictive and progressive in nature.”

“It is especially dangerous to the young, who are enticed by exciting and risky behaviors.”

“…the gambling industry and its allies in government work together to cultivate betting habits in the next generation.”

“We must reject the fantasy that wagering is innocuous entertainment and deal earnestly with the destruction and pain that it causes to individuals, families and society.”

For the record, I think this stuff is largely nuts. But then I’m not the one closely allied to these fanatics.

“A guy like Mailer hates a guy like Bush because Mailer thinks of himself as infinitely smarter than Bush and yet President Bush is the most powerful man on the planet and old Normy’s connecting through Atlanta and flying on prop planes to a community college that’s so far out in the sticks the mail rider has yet to arrive with the message that The Great Mailer is currently more out of the loupe than a jeweler with conjunctivitis. All so he can scoop up a submicroscopic honorarium and the accolades of star-struck locals and 18-year-olds who mistakenly think Mr. Mailer wrote “Gravity’s Rainbow.”” – Dennis Miller, fast becoming one of my icons, in today’s Journal.

No one does Schadenfreude like Kinsley does Schadenfreude. You get the feeling reading this column that it has been at least a couple decades in the formation. And all the more lethal for it. I’m amazed that no one at National Review or the Weekly Standard has even the mildest criticism to offer. But here’s a religious-right conservative weighing in at the American Spectator:

Several of the regulars on National Review’s weblog “The Corner” questioned whether Bennett’s gambling could even be called a vice as it was in the Newsweek story. The Weekly Standard’s Jonathan V. Last posted an article over the weekend referring to the controversy as “silly.” Their comments reflect the instinctive desire to protect Bennett because he has been the most articulate and successful mass-market spokesman for social conservatism during the past two decades.
But trying to whitewash the unseemly public vision of Bill Bennett sitting before a slot machine for three hours at a time to unwind after a speech before a family values group earlier in the evening is the wrong thing to do. No matter how you slice it, gambling millions of dollars is a betrayal of Bennett’s entire public career.

Still, this is the exception among social conservatives so far. They are a disciplined political bunch, don’t you think?

One of the more irritating memes of the foreign policy debate is that the world is divided between hawks, who favor military action, and doves, who favor diplomacy. Of course this has always been a crude simplification. But our current world shows something that Machiavelli understood well: that being a hawk sometimes is the only means of being an effective dove. Why have Syria and North Korea become – even temporarily – more compliant with U.S. diplomatic entreaties? Because they’re scared of us. Being feared is sometimes much more important than being loved. In the Middle East it’s almost always more important. The critical facet of the current president’s superb foreign policy has been his inclusion of Powell and Rumsfeld on the same team (with Rice operating as go-between). It has given him more credibility and flexibility than any recent president, except Reagan. And what was Reagan’s signal achievement? Bringing about the peaceful collapse of the evil empire in part by scaring the world to death. Now, we even see signs of Paris supporting U.S. pressure on Syria. From Le Parisien this weekend:

The thing is sufficiently rare to be remarked:-Paris and Washington find themselves, on the subject of Syria, following a common line.-On his return from the Middle East, Dominique de Villepin used, in effect, an unusually firm tone vis-a-vis the regime of Bachar el-Assad.-In a press conference, he first urged the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon … In his speech, Villepin [also] urged Damascus to ‘moderate’ its support of ‘politico-military’ organizations operating against Israel from Lebanese soil.-His target: Hezbollah, the Shiite group also supported by Teheran.-In plain language:-viewed from the French foreign ministry, Hezbollah, which has a main office-in Beirut, can continue its political activities, but must stop its attacks on Israel.-For Paris, a notable turn:-we remember what happened to Lionel Jospin in-February 2000 when, at the time Prime Minister, he called Hezbollah a ‘terrorist movement.’-This comment resulted in a ‘convocation’ with the President.-But why this sharp turn [in French policy]?-What’s at stake, explains one diplomat, is the seller’s bonanza that’s developing in the Middle East.-The Americans, after their ‘victory’ in Iraq, are next going to tackle-the Israel-Arab dossier. Thus France, marginalized because of its opposition to the US, wants nonetheless to have influence in the region.

Isn’t victory sweet? Just remember who got us here and who opposed it. My own take on what’s next appears opposite.

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 usual suspects – Harry Belafonte, Danny Glover, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Rigoberta Menchu, and Aldolfo Perez Esquivel – back Castro’s totalitarian state, a state where these artists and writers wouldn’t be able to practice their craft freely. Very distressing to see Nadine Gordimer sign on to such moral blindness.

BEGALA AWARD NOMINEE: “Under Nazi rule there was never any doubt about “big business” being subordinated to the political regime. In the United States, however, it has been apparent for decades that corporate power has become so predominant in the political establishment, particularly in the Republican Party, and so dominant in its influence over policy, as to suggest a role inversion the exact opposite of the Nazis’. At the same time, it is corporate power, as the representative of the dynamic of capitalism and of the ever-expanding power made available by the integration of science and technology with the structure of capitalism, that produces the totalizing drive that, under the Nazis, was supplied by ideological notions such as Lebensraum. In rebuttal it will be said that there is no domestic equivalent to the Nazi regime of torture, concentration camps or other instruments of terror. But we should remember that for the most part, Nazi terror was not applied to the population generally; rather, the aim was to promote a certain type of shadowy fear – rumors of torture – that would aid in managing and manipulating the populace. Stated positively, the Nazis wanted a mobilized society eager to support endless warfare, expansion and sacrifice for the nation.” – Sheldon Wolin, arguing that today’s America represents “inverted totalitarianism,” in the Nation.

Very useful summaries from Will Saletan in Slate and Jake Tapper in Salon. I concur with Will on Dean. I will always revere Dean for his principled defense of gay equality, but he has a truly mean, contemptuous streak (I debated him once and saw this side of him all-too-closely) that will turn off voters. But then Kerry has that streak too. Glad to see Lieberman find his footing at last. He’s ahead in South Carolina.

BLAIR AND GOD: At the Dems’ debate, there was an interchange of quotes from the Bible – Lieberman and Sharpton swapping chapters and verses. In most other countries, this kind of public theologizing would be unimaginable. “We don’t do God here,” remarked Tony Blair’s media adviser in the middle of an interview of Blair by Vanity Fair’s David Margolick. According to a story in the Times of London, Blair was even barred from ending one of his addresses to the nation during the war with “God bless you:”

While having make-up applied for his screen appearance on the eve of hostilities in Iraq, the Prime Minister reportedly told his staff: “I want to end with, ‘God bless you’.” At this point, according to The Times article, there was “a noisy team revolt in which every player appears to be complaining at once”. Staff said that this was “not a good idea”, to which an irritated Mr Blair – raising his voice – responded: “Oh no?” One unidentified member of the Blair team reportedly replied: “You are talking to lots of people who don’t want chaplains pushing stuff down their throats.” When the Prime Minister responded by saying: “You are the most ungodly lot I have ever . . .”, his speechwriter Peter Hyman, who is Jewish, replied tartly: “Ungodly? Count me out.”

This bar on religious expression in public life strikes me as extreme, as extreme as the views of people like Rick Santorum or Kenneth Connor of the Family Research Council who seem to see no distinction between religion and politics. Can’t we have some sort of middle way in this respect?

I concur with Mickey Kaus that the conversion of D.C.’s mayor, Tony Williams, to the idea of school vouchers in D.C. is a big deal. I wonder if Williams’ Catholicism had anything to do with this (since Catholic schools will play a major part in saving the next generation of inner-city kids). Either way, it’s great news, and a feather in the cap for my friend, David Catania, a bright, young and, yes, gay Republican who has been pushing for this innovation on the city council for a very long time. Now if only Congress would let D.C. run itself, who knows what other innovations this place could pioneer? Medical marijuana? We voted for it. Gay marriage? In my dreams.

A hefty majority thinks I’m being too tolerant. I’m going to think some of this over today and get back to you. Here’s an email that suggests I simply don’t know that much about big-time gambling (which is true; I’ve never been in a casino in my life) and that this makes a difference:

Bill Bennett, for once, for the very first time, you’ve got it all wrong. I can’t believe somebody as intelligent as you would be so far off target. Just because Bill Clinton was an unprincipled, disreputable person doesn’t mean you should go to bat for Bill Bennett. Mr. Bennett has- a very serious problem on his hands and, if nothing else, by his conduct and his associations he’ll never be able to serve in government again, and shouldn’t be allowed to. And if he goes around giving lectures on virtue again, he should be laughed out of town. Not a single personnel security adjudicator anywhere in the civil service would give Bennett a security clearance, even at the confidential level. By any measure, he’s unsuitable for federal service–in any capacity. This is a man who was the chief advisor on drug enforcement to the President of the United States and he’s carrying around a world class gambling habit and you don’t see anything wrong or out of line about it? There is a monumental Jones on Bennett’s back that surpasses the sickness that afflicted Pete Rose in his most out-of-control periods. I can’t believe your naivete. Do you know any professional gamblers? Do you know what kind of shady people we’re talking about here? Do you know what it’s like to be in heavy hock to them? Do you know what FBI agents would say about a man who walks out of a Vegas casino down $1.4 million? They would say this man is in deep trouble and desperately needs help. And they would say such a man should not be advising Presidents on drug enforcement. He shouldn’t be advising Presidents on anything. He shouldn’t be allowed in the company of Presidents. I’d certainly never let him in on advance inside information about a big planned drug bust, not ever again. Gambling at the Bennett level is not bean bag. The connection between drug dealing and organized gambling is clear and people who are in one pursuit are always – always! – linked to the other. You’ve led a sheltered life if you think betting hundreds of thousands of dollars on one evening in a crummy gaming hall is just one man’s altogether acceptable way to find relaxation after a tough day at the office. Such behavior is sickness, it is high-risk, it is self-destructive, it is suicidal and it is no way for an adviser to Presidents to behave. Big-shot operatives in the Republican Party shouldn’t behave like that either. This is an astonishing development and my recommendation to you is not to break your pick for this guy. My sense is that we’ve just begun to learn about his life in the casinos. Clinton was bad, Bennett is bad too, for different reasons. If the Republicans try to make hay of this, don’t blame them. Blame the man with the habit.

My problem with this is that I don’t particularly like “blaming” people with habits. But, as I said, I’ll think about this some more. For those of you who think I was tougher on Bill Clinton, you’re wrong. I strongly defended his sexual privacy. I just had an issue with sexual harrassment and the law. More feedback on the Letters Page.