William J. Bennett, moral standard-bearer of the religious right likes to play poker. And he’s a pretty lousy poker player at that, having lost more than US$8 million in the last ten years. Imagine that. Actually Bennett prefers the slots and video poker because he can do it with minimal interaction with other people. “I’ve been a machine person,” Bennett tells Newsweek and Washington Monthly reporters. “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.”
This would be news only in a culture as disfunctionally schizophrenic as ours.
In a New York Times article this morning, Katharine Q. Seelye reveals the shocking details that Bennett has lost so much money in casino gambling that he’s considered to be a “preferred customer” at some of them and even receives high-roller perks like limo service and comp’ed rooms.
Bennett told both the Washington Monthly and Newsweek (where the scandalous details were originally reported and which serves as the basis for the New York Times story) that he plays fairly high stakes, doesn’t put his family at risk, and doesn’t owe anyone anything. By all accounts, Bennett, Reagan’s education secretary and Bush the elder’s drug czar, has never attempted to hide his gambling activities.
So where’s the story?
That there’s only one hypocritical right-wing moral zealot in Washington—now that would be a story.
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