moralist, william bennett---degenerate gambler

[AR182]

i have always been suspicious of people who pass moral judgement on others.imo, whatever credibility he had is now shot.



The Man of Virtues Has a Vice
Conservative activist Bill Bennett has wagered millions in Las Vegas and Atlantic City casinos during the past decade

By Jonathan Alter and Joshua Green



May 2 ? In his best-selling anthology, ?The Book of Virtues,? William J. Bennett writes: ?We should know that too much of anything, even a good thing, may prove to be our undoing ? [We] need to set definite boundaries on our appetites.?

DOES BENNETT? The popular author, lecturer and Republican Party activist speaks out, often indignantly, about almost every moral issue except one?gambling. It?s not hard to see why. According to casino documents, Bennett is a ?preferred customer? in at least four venues in Atlantic City and Las Vegas, betting millions of dollars over the last decade. His games of choice: video poker and slot machines, some at $500 a pull. With a revolving line of credit of at least $200,000 at each casino, Bennett, former drug czar and secretary of Education under Presidents Reagan and Bush, doesn?t have to bring money when he shows up at a casino.
More than 40 pages of internal casino documents provided to The Washington Monthly and NEWSWEEK paint a picture of a gambler given the high-roller treatment, including limos and tens of thousands of dollars in complimentary hotel rooms and other amenities. In one two-month period, the documents show him wiring more than $1.4 million to cover losses at one casino. In one 18-month stretch, Bennett visited a number of casinos for two or three days at a time. And Bennett must have worried about news of his habit leaking out. His customer profile at one casino lists an address that corresponds to Empower.org, the Web site of Empower America, the group Bennett cochairs. But typed across the form are the words: NO CONTACT AT RES OR BIZ!!!
Some of Bennett?s losses have been substantial. According to one casino source, on July 12 of last year, Bennett lost $340,000 at Caesars in Atlantic City, and on April 5 and 6 of 2003 he lost more than $500,000 at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Some casino estimates put his total losses over the past decade at more than $8 million. ?There?s a term in the trade for his kind of gambler,? says a casino source who has witnessed Bennett at the high-limit slots in the wee hours. ?We call them losers.?
Reached by NEWSWEEK, Bennett acknowledged he gambles but not that he has ended up behind. ?Over 10 years, I?d say I?ve come out pretty close to even,? Bennett says, though he wouldn?t discuss any specific figures. ?You can roll up and down a lot in one day, as we have on many occasions,? Bennett explains. ?You may cycle several hundred thousand dollars in an evening and net out only a few thousand.?
But during the 18-month period, the documents show, there were only a few occasions when Bennett turned in chips?worth about $30,000 or $40,000?at the end of an evening. Most of the time, he drew down his line of credit, often substantially. A casino source, hearing of Bennett?s claim to breaking even on slots over 10 years, just laughed.

?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,? Bennett says. The documents do not contradict those points.
Bennett, who earns more than $50,000 per speaking engagement and made several hundred thousand dollars in publishing advances for the more recent of his 11 books, says ?I?ve made a lot of money and I?ve won a lot of money. When I win, I usually give at least a chunk of it away [to charity]. I report everything to the IRS.?
?You don?t see what I walk away with,? Bennett says. ?They [the casinos] don?t want you to see it.?
Bennett says he plays slot machines and video poker for privacy. ?I?ve been a machine person,? he says. ?When I go to the tables, people talk?and they want to talk about politics. I don?t want that. I do this for three hours to relax.?
He has made no secret of his gambling, Bennett adds. He says he was in Las Vegas in April for dinner with the former governor of Nevada and gambled while he was there. ?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?ve been a poker player.? He says that after a recent speech in Rochester, he was asked whether he would run for president in 2008 and answered that he might enter the World Series of Poker instead.
Bennett has long been known to be part of a small-stakes poker game in Washington with Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Associate Justice Antonin Scalia and lawyer Robert Bork. But his high-stakes gaming comes as a surprise to many friends. ?We knew he went out there [to Las Vegas] sometimes, but at that level? Wow!? says one longtime associate.
Bennett and his organization, Empower America, oppose the extension of casino gambling in the states. In a recent editorial, his Empower America cochair, Jack Kemp, inveighed against lawmakers who ?pollute our society with a slot machine on every corner.? The group recently published an ?Index of Leading Cultural Indicators? that reports 5.5 million American adults as ?problem? or ?pathological? gamblers. Bennett says he has his gambling under control.
When reminded of studies that link heavy gambling to divorce, bankruptcy, domestic abuse and other family problems he has widely decried, Bennett compared the situation to alcohol. ?I view it as drinking,? Bennett says. ?If you can?t handle it, don?t do it.?

 

[Blazer]

What is immoral about gambling?

What has Billy Boy done wrong?

Bill provides for his family, makes a shitload of money, and likes to spend it at casinos.

I don't understand this criticism.


:shrug: :shrug: :shrug:

 

[TheShrimp]

Well, the thing is, some people consider drinking bad. Some people consider porn bad. Some people consider swearing bad. Some people consider gambling bad.

I, personally, and I figure a lot of people at a gambling site, don't consider any of them bad.

A for Bennett to arbitrarily say "these vices are bad, but the ones I enjoy aren't bad" is, not technically hypocritical, but pretty damn close to it.

That's what he doesn't get. He says that the people who criticize gambling are wrong EXACTLY LIKE people say he's wrong for criticizing these other activities.

He supports the notion of imposing your own morality onto others but doesn't want people to do it to him.

 

[AR182]

i personally don't care if bennett gambles or not. but the thing that alot of people object to is his hypocracy.when a public figure, such as bennett, builds his reputation with criticizing other public figures about their moral failings, he better be clean.

along with jack kemp, bennett formed a group called empower america. this group published something called the index of leading cultural indicators, which sees, "problem gambling as a negative indicator of cultural health".it also states," that there are 5.5 million american adults as problem or pathological gamblers."

he also wrote a book called book of virtues. in this book he states,"we should know that too much of anything, even a good thing, may prove to be our undoing. we need to set definate boundaries on our appetites"

it seems that bennett's philosophy is do as i say not as i do, because some casino's estimate that bennett's total losses over the past decade at more than $8 million.now he has ridiculed bill clinton for lying,& clinton definately deserves this criticism, but he shouldn't be caught in a lie either.when questioned by newsweek, bennett states that over the last 10 years he has broken closed to even.i am not a big casino gambler, but i doubt that he broke even by playing video poker, & the slots.so in essence bennett is lying, something that he criticized clinton in doing.

again i don't care if bennett gambles, but people who pass moral judgement on others, must be clean of all vices.

 

[AR182]

i just read the following article in newsmax, & they complain that not enough attention, in the media, has been paid to hillary clinton's apparent lying of her role with the 9/11 families.

With Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

Saturday May 3, 2003; 3:41 a.m. EDT
Newsweek Probes Bennett's Gambling Instead of Hillary's 9/11 Lies

While the establishment press won't touch bombshell allegations that U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton claims to have counseled 9/11 victim families in meetings that the families themselves say never took place, Newsweek has launched an investigation into the private gambling habits of private citizen Bill Bennett.

"More than 40 pages of internal casino documents provided to The Washington Monthly and Newsweek paint a picture of a gambler given the high-roller treatment, including limos and tens of thousands of dollars in complimentary hotel rooms and other amenities," the hit piece, posted to the magazine's Web site, claims.

"In one two-month period, the documents show him wiring more than $1.4 million to cover losses at one casino. In one 18-month stretch, Bennett visited a number of casinos for two or three days at a time."

The conservative moralist denies any wrongdoing, explaining that he gambles for relaxation, has "never bet the milk money" and claims to have broken even over the years.

Still, that didn't stop Clinton attack dog James Carville from zeroing in on the report during Friday night's "Crossfire" broadcast. After summarizing the Washington Monthly version of the story, Carville complained to "Crossfire" co-host Bob Novak, "I mean, come on, man. I mean you're telling me that's like the guy don't have a problem? Woo!"

Although media organs of both the left and the right are sure to pick up Newsweek's Bennett attack - especially after it was hyped on the Drudge Report late Friday - even most conservative news outlets have been mum about devastating new charges leveled by a highly credible source against the nation's most celebrated elected Democrat, Hillary Clinton.

Nearly two weeks ago, widely respected publisher-journalist Steven Brill revealed that while researching his new book, "After: How America Confronted the September 12 Era," Mrs. Clinton sought him out to tout her own role ministering to 9/11 victim families in a craven attempt to trash fellow Senator Charles Schumer, and even had her office provide bogus records of the phantom meetings.

"None of it turned out to be true," Brill told WABC Radio's Steve Malzberg. "They gave me documents and phone calls and things like that which just plain never happened."

Brill said Clinton's office attempted to construct "an elaborate story, with an elaborate subtext of memos and phone calls - a long, long story."

Five days later the nation's top Democrat categorically denied the story - and went so far as to attack Brill, who defended the Clintons throughout impeachment, as someone who would lie to sell more books.

In a statement released to the Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, Hillary spokesman Phillipe Reines said, "Brill's accusations are completely false and an obvious last ditch effort to jump-start anemic book sales. It's hard to understand why Mr. Brill would choose to exploit such a horrible tragedy in this manner."

With the exception of O'Reilly and fellow Fox News Channel hosts "Hannity & Colmes," the broadcast media has ignored Brill's bombshell, despite the author's heavyweight reputation as the founder of "Court TV" and "American Lawyer" magazine.

Though NewsMax.com has covered Brill's quotes extensively since the story broke, neither Newsweek nor any other print outlet has deemed the revelations about America's most powerful elected Democrat to be newsworthy.

Within hours of the Newsweek report on Bennett, however, that story was getting heavy play on the ABC Radio network's top of the hour news broadcasts, and was being circulated to top opinion makers on "The Hotline."



the problem that i see is that the country is so divided between conservatives & liberals that instead of the media just reporting the news, they instead emphasize stories that follow their political views.imo, this is a major problem we have in this country.

 

[dawgball]

I don't think he has done anything wrong, and I don't care for the guy at all. If he is still providing for his family, productive in his career, and not cheating anyone then he has done nothing wrong.

AR182--I have read that video poker can be a very lucrative game if played correctly. Slots, on the other hand, everyone knows the outcome.

We, Catholics, have always considered a major portion of Baptists to be like this guy.

 

[AR182]

dawgball,

i agree with you 100%, he didn't do anything wrong. the problem is he has passed himself off a moralist who criticizes other people doing, what he deems as wrong. that's hypocracy!.


btw, where can i find material about winning money at video poker.

 

[Penguinfan]

I don't think he has done anything wrong, and I don't care for the guy at all. If he is still providing for his family, productive in his career, and not cheating anyone then he has done nothing wrong.

It is a very narrow point of view that anti-gambling (actually it seems anti-everything) people have. My wife is a good example, I enjoy very much betting on horses. My wife does not work, we have 2 kids and a house in a very good school district, I pay all the bills, EVERY CENT. I closed the book on last year with a positive ROI, and I am up this year as well, very small profit on both occasions, but nevertheless a profit. I still get the attitude everytime I head to the track, which is not all that often if reality. She refuses to understand that not everybody ends up a degenerate and broke, and she never will.

Penguinfan