Ya know, it's sad that the NY Times considers this Blair punk's plagiarism the worst thing that's happened to NY Times since it came up. I seem to remember "In the gulag, there is also..." and the objectivly evil Walter Duranty--lied about the crimes of the USSR when it was only 20 or 30 years in. When you think about it, if everyone had been Perfectly Clear on what was going on in the USSR, we may have made some different policy decisions--maybe the USSR wouldn't have kept entire regions of the world prisoner for 70 years.

Chimps may have their champions, but when it comes to be considered among the ranks of high IQ tree swingers, Sulawesi crested macaques fail, quite clearly, to make the grade:

“Lecturers and students from the University of Plymouth wanted to test the claim that an infinite number of monkeys given typewriters would create the works of The Bard.

A single computer was placed in a monkey enclosure at Paignton Zoo to monitor the literary output of six primates.

But after a month, the Sulawesi crested macaques had only succeeded in partially destroying the machine, using it as a lavatory, and mostly typing the letter "s".”

On the other hand, it’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that these hapless simian scribblers (Elmo, Gum, Heather, Holly, Mistletoe and Rowan) might have a prosperous future ahead of them in the field of performance art.

Derb, that is exactly what I thought you were saying. I enjoy the zoology of conservatism quite a bit -- a bit more than you, I think -- but i also reject prefix conservatism from the left and the right as usually silly. I think 98% of the commentary about "neocons" for example is unhelpful, nonsensisical, ahistorical or paranoid -- or all four. The only adjectives I find more helpful than unhelpful are ones of degree. Very conservative, extremely conservative, not very conservative etc. And even these are usually misapplied by non-conservatives.

[T]here are considerations just as important--indeed, that strike closer to home--than military readiness. When an unprecedented number of women--including single mothers and dual military couples--were deployed to Desert Storm in 1991, a bill was introduced in Congress to prohibit the deployment of parents whose children risked being orphaned. An AP poll at the time found that 64 percent of the public agreed that it was "unacceptable for the United States to send women with young children to the war zone." The war ended before Congress acted, but the public was clearly concerned about the unequal sacrifice faced by the 80,000 children with a single parent, or both parents, in the service. Single custodial parents in the military are disproportionately female, and the public clearly saw a distinction between the sacrifices of mothers and the sacrifices of fathers. Someone must fight our wars, so fathers will inevitably be at risk; but must young mothers be exposed to such danger?

Although single custodial parents are not eligible to enlist, once they are in uniform generous subsidies and accommodating assignment policies can encourage single parenthood. In Ground Zero: The Gender Wars in the Military (1997), feminist author Linda Bird Francke approvingly noted that the military's family benefits make the services "a particular mecca for single parents." In 1989, the Navy had twice as many single parents, proportionately, as the civilian population. Although one study found that the re-enlistment rate for women dropped by 69 percent once they became mothers, for many vulnerable single mothers the military provides a tempting safety net of benefits, including health care and housing.

Stanley, you make the point in your most recent post that “someone has to enforce the prohibitions society decides upon.” Technically speaking, of course, that’s quite right, but your implication seems to be that Bennett should not be singled out for special criticism merely because he was the drug czar. The analogy, I suppose, is that he was just another cop doing his duty. That lets Bennett off the hook far too easily. As a ‘czar’ (a job he appears to have accepted with some relish), Bennett was not just enforcing the rules, but he was setting them too. The drugs laws in this country are cruel, capricious and counterproductive, and Bennett played a part in making them that way. It’s entirely fair to ask him to defend the stance he took (and takes) with regard to those laws, and it’s also perfectly legitimate to ask him why he thinks that gambling should be permitted, but cannabis should not. Despite my own view that both ‘vices’ should be legal, it would be foolish to deny that there are plenty of reasonable (or reasonable-seeming) answers to that question.

It would be interesting to hear which one Bennett chose to give.

Jonah,

I'm horrified by your latest G-File, specifically the question regarding the best episode of the Simpsons. The best episode (and I've made sure to carefully study all of them) is also, coincidentally, one of the most politically conservative:

The one where Homer becomes the head of the Union.

Not only does it have oodles of hilarious union-bashing (the body on the football field, the boy from 1905 that they wall up in the abandoned coke oven, etc.), but you have: -- the opening montage where McBain kills an entire dinner party with a machine gun (including the orchestra, who continue playing during his rampage) -- the evil German dentist ("Why must you turn my office into a house of lies!? Let's look at a book, Ralph, the Big Book of British Smiles...") -- Mr. Burns giving a tour of his house, including a thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters ("It was the best of times, it was the BLURST OF TIMES! You stupid monkey!") -- The townspeople commencing looting the instant the power goes out

Good times. :)

Ah well, carry on. By the way, Deep Space Homer would probably make my top five (along with Sherry Bobbins, the X-Files crossover, and Homer becoming a missionary -- why is the word "Jebus" so damn funny?), so I guess I can't be too outraged.

We try harder so our customers don't have to.

Rod, I forgot about the Kirk and Tolkien stuff. My apologies.

As for not being a new movement, that's not the way it's read to me in the past. If it's all about reclaiming the roots of conservatism, that's cool. Why not flip the argument around and claim that mainstream conservatism has strayed in a new direction while "real" conservatism needs to be rekindled? This is the traditional (!) way conservatives hash these sorts of arguments out. In this formulation it certainly reads to me as not only something new and a pushing-off of traditional conservatism, but often a triangulation effort to adopt certain popular leftwing positions and assumptions. Indeed, on that note, I just saw your Crunchy Con reprint in the Utne Reader!

Oh, and by the way, anyone out there who might be worried that I'm hostile to Rod, fear not. Rod's still family.

And Rich wants me to rework my piece and a kazillion of you had something along these lines to tell me in response to today's G-File:

Jonah, if I am not mistaken, the first neighbor was the mean old lady with the hangers. Next came the divorced woman who wore the bandana. She had a daughter (voice by Sarah Gilbert) whom Bart had a crush on. The Bandana lady made an appearance in a later episode, which poked fun at Thelma & Louise.

Or:

The Simpsons' next-door neighbor on the other side of the Simpsons WAS the old lady who sold her home to Ruth Powers...and then Ruth Powers, obviously, up to the Thelma and Louise episode. But recently she showed up and had to explain that she'd been in prison, so...I guess we DON'T know who is in that house now! (I'd started this to tell you it was Ruth, and I'd forgotten. Oh well.)

I'm about to take a nap because I was up most of the night working on the mag piece and woke up early to do CNN. But my short answer on this crunchy con versus metro con thing is pretty straightforward. I think metropolitan conservatism actually describes a real, longstanding cultural distinction among conservatives. I don't think it necessarily describes or seeks to describe a new ideology, cause or movement. Rather, I think urban versus rural is a useful distinction, relied upon by historians, sociogists et al. to describe real differences in sentiment. As I recall Derb's column he was making the point that "blue state" conservatives find common cause and common arguments with "red state" conservatives even if they have different lifestyles.

The crunchy con thing is almost the exact reverse: a "movement" -- real or imagined -- seeking to distinguish itself from mainstream conservatism because of ones lifestyle. Rod's crunchy conservatism claims to be something new, something distinct something which doesn't fit neatly or comfortably under the label conservative (though I note that he now cites the Southern Agrarians as UR-crunchy cons, a point I made originally to demonstrate that what Rod calls crunchy conservatism is in fact not new).

For all of the reasons we hashed out before, I don't buy CCism and I don't really like it. And, if Derb were to do the same thing with his metro-con thing I would reject that too. But as far as I know, Derb still calls himself a plain old conservative and only got into this metropolitan conservatism thing in order to explain himself when severely pressed by a pushy woman. Hardly the begining of the revolution if you ask me. My apologies if I sound too cranky, me very tired.

I'm working on the G-File as we speak. I'm ignoring taunts from bloggers, emailers and the rest so I can get it done. I just finished a piece for the mag. I'm responding to readers fascinating questions. There were hundreds of them. So decided to only answer questions from people named Tood or Janet or who have four or more consecutive consonants in their last name.

It looks to me like one of those photos is at the bottom of the left-hand column on the whitehouse.gov hompage. It would be hard to make a link to this photo any easier to find.

If the White House is as intent on using the Lincoln photos of Bush in a flight suit for publicity as some leftists are claiming why can't I find an easy link to them on www.whitehouse.gov? I wanted to bookmark them for easy inspiration and print one for my "I'm living through one of history's turning points" file.

Dude, where's my corner? My guess:
Goldberg: Trying to explain to Cosmo why it is not hypocritical to avoid hitting squirrels with the car, just a little inconsistent.
The Derb: Trapped fending off radical libs somewhere in Northern CA
Stuttaford: Saving all his best material for the weekend, and/or chowing down on some marmite.
Dreher: THE GUY DOESN'T WORK HERE ANYMORE, HE'S IN DALLAS NOW, STOP FORCING HIM TO POST TO THE CORNER!
Miller: Rejoicing in the Piston's OT win last night
Ponnuru: Formulating a plan to privatize the lottery
Kurtz: Thinking about how best to configure his "triple posts" (it is well known that Stanley's corner posts come in threes)
Cosmo: Suffering through one of Goldberg's "Hypocrite v. Inconsistent" tirades

Tom from Florida "takes umbrage" at being called innumerate for playing the lottery:

He says he knows that "the odds are about 1 in 23 million...but that it's still fun to bet $5 or so on a long shot," a point echoed by a number of other readers.

Meanwhile, on the subject of governments pushing 'vice', how about state-run liquor stores? Judging by the remarks from a correspondent in Pennsylvania, the ones there sound peculiarly depressing: "high prices, less selection and employees in the Cliff Claven mold."

He promises not to expose the round-the-clock games of caribbean stud poker and pai gow taking place in my basement.

Josh Green of The Washington Monthly got in touch with me and says the transcript I posted below is either wrong or that he misspoke. Green stands by his $8 million dollar net loss assertion as reported in his article.

From a reader:

Hey Jonah,

Don't you dare back down on the tyranny of consistency, the twin of the tyranny of hypocrisy!

This is something that's bugged me for a long time, one of the main causes behind e.g. "Something so ridiculous only an academic could believe it."

One thing that doesn't seem to get mentioned often is the difference between a contradiction and a paradox. A paradox is only a seeming contradiction, based on incomplete knowledge. Take Zeno's paradox, for example, (where the hare can never catch up to the tortoise, because the tortoise will always have moved forward by the time the hare catches up to where he was; related to not being able to cross a room because you are always halving the distance, etc.). The paradox was thought up to prove Xeno's idea that motion and change are mere illusions. We have a contradiction, therefore the premise must be false.

The point, of course, is that apparent contradictions or inconsistencies may only prove a lack of knowledge or understanding (in Zeno's case, of differential calculus).

In philosophy, the idea is to sit in a dark room and understand the universe using reason alone. In science, the idea is to ask "OK, what actually happens" i.e. do an experiment and see what reality says about your ideas. I'll take reality over intellectual consistency any day (although, of course, most scientists are perhaps a bit distant from reality).

Cosmo, that was a joke. The Onion is a parody site.

From the Onion:

Nation's Dogs Dangerously Underpetted, Say Dogs
NEW YORK—At a press conference Monday, representatives of the Association of American Dogs announced that the nation's canines are dangerously underpetted. "Every night, thousands of U.S. dogs go to bed without so much as a scritch behind the ears," AAD president Banjo said. "If this sort of neglect from our masters continues, it could lead to widespread jumping on the furniture." Upon his owner's arrival in the press-conference room, Banjo abruptly ended his speech, frantically barking, leaping, and rolling over on his back in an effort to communicate his need for a vigorous belly rub.

The case of Tony Martin, the British farmer jailed for shooting (and killing) a burglar, is more complex than is sometimes suggested on this side of the Atlantic, but he certainly ought to have been granted parole by now. However, as this report revealed:

“Parole Board lawyers are opposing Mr Martin's early release arguing that burglars are members of the public who need protecting from violent householders.”

In the event, Martin lost his bid for freedom.

I’ve just been going through my e-mails on this topic (too many to reply to individually, alas). Disappointingly, most seem to agree with Ramesh on state lotteries (they are opposed), although a number of the more moderate Ponuru-ites (Ponurians?) would favor competing privatized lotteries (with better odds than the government now offers – worse than the Mob’s apparently). The state would then tax the companies that run the lotteries.

Here’s an interesting comment from a reader in LA:

“It is often said that lotteries are a tax on stupid people, but more accurate is to say that it is a tax on the poorly educated. I view state-sponsored lotteries as a way the government capitalizes on its own failure to educate people properly. Statistics and probability are some of the worst taught subjects in school--if they are even taught at all. For the state governments to fail at teaching this basic subject and then to rake in money because of [this] failure is, in my view, immoral.”

Eugene Volokh gets gets my back on the issue of hypocrisy. The least I can do is come to his defense on the charge of statistical illiteracy (shouldn't that be innumeracy?). First of all, even Green admits that it wasn't $8 million out of Bennett's pocket. Rather, Bennett kept gambling his winnings which means the same dollars get counted several times. The relevant admission by Green from MSNBC Tuesday night:

SCARBOROUGH: OK, did he lose $8 million, though? He reported $8 million in losses, but is it minus $8 million?

GREEN: No, no, let's be real clear about that. No, no, let's be clear about that. That is net loss more than $1 million. These gambling records that we've got, they show losses, they show wins. He hit plenty of jackpots, $10,000, $15,000, $40,000, up to $80,000 jackpots. The problem is, is, he'd turn around and he would play them right back.

Keep in mind that slot machines "give back" 97% of the money that's put into them. Over ten years if Bennett parlayed his winnings time and again, it's hardly inconceivable that a "small" amount of money would look like a lot if you took snapshots of it being re-wagered a second, third or fiftieth time.

Here's a useful email from one of several casino execs and gambling experts I've been talking to:

Jonah, a few things worth mentioning that we haven't yet seen mentioned:

Casinos typically track what players put "at risk." The info that was leaked was not what Bennett lost, just what he put at risk. A VIP player, or a "whale" in the industry, is not someone who necessarily loses a lot of money, it's a person that puts a lot of money at risk. (I bet there's a HUGE manhunt going on to find whoever leaked that info.)

Bennett's game, slots, overall pays back in the range of 97% of what's put in. Granted, one big winner can kill the odds for lots of other players by eating up a chunk of that 97%, but it's the high-stakes players that have the best odds of winning and get the highest payback because they are risking more. Bennett is a high-limit slots player, so it's just as conceivable that, over the course of 10 years, he has come out close to even or even made money as it is that he's lost money. It's the low-stakes nickel, dime, quarter players that are the bread and butter in the industry. There's not a lot of money to be made with high-rollers. In fact, when our company stopped courting high-rollers and focused on the mom-and-pop recreational players, we've had record revenues every quarter since, including during this recession that has killed other tourist-dependent industries.

So, my point is, risking $8 million over 10 years does not make him an ultra-huge player and definitely not a compulsive gambler. There are whales that play, and win, that much in one night. Yes, it puts him WAY beyond the mom-and-pops, and definitely in the VIP category with all its perks, but he's far from being the biggest whale out there, or even among the biggest. And what determines how much is "too much"? He appears to have been playing within his means. Again, he likely didn't lose anywhere near $8 million.

Also worth mentioning, some of the strongest gaming markets in the U.S. -- Biloxi, Tunica, Shreveport, Vicksburg -- are thriving in the Bible Belt and were approved by voters.

Something else bothers me. He writes:

As a libertarian, I really don't buy into the "No Guardrails" way of thinking. I don't believe in collective rights (affirmative action, for example), or in collective morality. I think that left to their own devices, people will generally make decisions that are in their own best interests. Let each pursue his own happiness, so long as he doesn't hurt anyone else.

That's fair enough as far as it goes. But for the record, it's simply nonsense to assert that there's something contradictory about being a "moralist" and a "libertarian." A huge chunk of Bennett's "sermonizing" never called for the State to do anything. Rather he believed in shaming people who did shameful things. There's absolutely nothing inconsistent with libertarianism and this position. Hayek was a strong supporter of the influences of culture on individual behavior and I know plenty of libertarians who would argue that the smaller the State gets the more assertive the culture would have to be in policing and shaming errant behavior. Indeed, the glory days of early America are a perfect case in point. The government was strong but local moral codes were very strong. Many early -- and I would guess current -- National Review conservatives argued that the expansion of the State crowded out the ability of other institutions (Burke's "Little Platoons") to police, nudge or otherwise influence individual behavior. If Balko believes libertarianism is about radical individual autonomy, he's hardly alone but he's adhering to a form of libertarianism which will never catch on in this country and never existed in this country -- thank goodness.

CORRECTION: Woops! That should have read "The government was weak but local moral codes were very strong. Many early -- and I would guess current -- National Review conservatives argued that the expansion of the State crowded out the ability of other institutions (Burke's "Little Platoons") to police, nudge or otherwise influence individual behavior."

From a reader:

Jonah,
I never knew you were a New Testament scholar. :-) I'm surprised your Corner Compatriots didn't pick up on this first. Your position on the topic and Bennett's swearing off gambling are 100% consistent with the thesis of Chapter 14 of Paul's letter to the Romans, essentially: For some people, certain things are considered sinful, for others not (e.g., eating meat, worshipping on certain days, etc). The bottom line is that you shouldn't put a stumbling block in front of your brother if he considers your activities sinful. I shouldn't be surprised that since the secular press considers Bennett to a be a religious extremist, they couldn't point out the scriptural consistency in his actions. To be fair, I haven't heard the religious press make this point either.

Here's the "chapter & verse" Romans 14, Verses 13 & 14: Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother's way. I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean.

Aloha,

From a reader (and political science prof):

"Mr. Goldberg,

Since Aristotle has entered the argument over consistency, you might want to recall the following from his Nichomachean Ethics, Book I, chapter 3 (Ostwald trans.):

'Our disucssion will be adequate if it achieves clarity within the limits of the subject matter. For precision cannot be expected in the treatment of all subjects alike, any more than it can be expected in all manufactured articles. Problems of what is noble and just, which politics examines, present so much variety and irregularity that some people believe that they exist only by convention and not by nature.'

A few readers object:

"JG--
I don't have any personal problem with your position on consistency, but you have to realize that it makes you a moral relativist and a practitioner of situational ethics, both of which, I thought, were typical liberal vices?"

And another reader:

Aristotle's law of non-contradiction is roughly "it is not the case that something can be and cannot be at the same time". All of us observe this principle tacitly every day in all our interactions. Why, then, is inconsistency "ok" with respect to the principles that undergird social, moral, and political judgments? The position you defend begins to sound like relativism, or deconstructionism.

My response: It's true, it seems to me, as a matter of ontology that something cannot "be and not be" at the same time. But as a matter of human experience it also seems to me that this is entirely possible that something can appear to be and not be at the same time. I agree that if we have perfect knowledge of the universe and all its workings, it would be unforgivable to be inconsistent. But if we had such knowledge we would be God. Indeed, God is probably perfectly consistent but because we do not have the knowledge he has his ways often seem "mysterious," as the saying goes. To say that different courses need different horses doesn't mean one is a deconstructionist or moral relativist or a nihilist. It merely means that one is a realist.

The postmodern crowd seems to argue that since we can't know every thing we can't know anything -- and that's idiotic. We make judgements, we apply principles and go where the facts lead us. One reason we may seem inconsistent on one principle is simply that another principle takes precedence. For example, I think as a matter of principle one shouldn't lie. But if a friend on his deathbed asks me in abject despair, "Is there any hope?" I might lie to him because the principle of honesty takes a back seat to the principle of decency. Also, a lot of alleged inconsistencies are inconsistencies at the micro-level and fine at the macro-level. Killing someone in order to stop mass killing strikes many liberals as inconsistent. The short answer to that charge is, "So what?" I'm sure you already know the long answer.

The overwhelming public opinion on this subject suggests that what is at stake is not a competition of arguments, but a matter of basic human decency. Sadly, it's these moments of deepest tragedy that reveal most starkly how vapid and absurd some of the "arguments" are on the other side. If more of us had a better grasp of the fact that this is a constant and ongoing tragedy, they might not be able to pull them off so much of the time.

In the battle over legislation, there is no weapon as powerful as a victim. With the killing of Laci Peterson, the proponents of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act have one.

Seems I've hit a nerve out there. I can't spend all day on this, but let me explain. I said consistency is important. But it's not everything. For example, the Left tried to make conservatives apply their standards for toppling Iraq to North Korea. Consistency says we should use military force to topple both dictatorships. But reality gets in the way. North Korea is a different place, with different capabilities and toppling it would have different consequences. The Left was perfectly within its rights to say hawks were inconsistent. And hawks were perfectly within our rights to say, "yes, but for good reason." That's all I meant. See the piece I linked to for more if you like.

Norah Vincent of the LA Times (Reg Req'd) is another liberal who asserts that gambling is a sin and then imposes that conclusion into Bill Bennett's consciousness in order to call him a hypocrite -- despite the fact that his own Church doesn't consider it a sin. But I don't how many more times I can address the disingenuousness of this point. Rather I would like to address on assertion she makes:

The problem is that Bennett and Goldberg are not libertarians. They're hellfire conservatives, and hellfire conservatives tend not to believe that a generalized right to privacy exists in the Constitution, much less that harmless acts are protected by it. For far-right conservatives to defend Bennett's gambling in libertarian terms as a "harmless act" — one that doesn't starve the wife and kids — is disingenuous to say the least because it sidesteps the most important criterion by which such a conservative defines harm. That is, of course, sin.

If any of you folks have heard me talk about sin at any great length let alone raise the specter of firey damnation in the pits of Hell, please let me know. If, on the other hand, you do not consider me to be a "Hellfire conservative" please let her know.

"Liberal cosmopolitanism is like the dirty ring in the bathtub left over from international socialism."

I've long thought consistency was overrated. That doesn't mean it's not important, but it's not everything either. I seem to recall reading that Edmund Burke defended different aspects of the British Constitution on different grounds, and the subsidiary defenses contradicted each other (If someone could send me the exact citation I'd appreciate it). I generally see the world, culture etc as far too complex to demand consistency of principle in every situation. The second canon of Kirk's Six Canon's of Conservative Thought is an "Affection for the proliferating variety and mystery of human existence, as opposed to the narrowing uniformity, egalitarianism, and utilitarian aims of most radical systems;"

Marxism is consistent on every point, or at least Marxists think it is. That doesn't make Marxism any more right. In fact, it makes it more consistently wrong.

When Andrew and others demand consistency from conservatives that's a perfectly defensible position. But that doesn't mean conservative inconsistency makes us wrong, it just means we have to defend our inconsistency better.

Stan's right: Derb's column is a wonderful piece of writing. I particularly appreciate that he didn't fall for the trap of calling himself a "cosmopolitan conservative" which would open him to all sorts of critiques. Cosmopolitan, remember, means "citizen of the world." It stems from Diogenes who explained he wasn't a citizen of any particular state or city but loyal to the entire world. I think this explains the central difference between citified conservatives and citified liberals. The conservatives still have localized attachments -- to the community, to the region, to the nation. Citified liberals all too often are cosmopolitan in their outlook. They appeal to the United Nations or fret about the plight of a person or a frog in Southeast Asia as much as they do about the person or frog in their own backyard. This split -- between cosmopolitan liberals and metropolitan conservatives -- goes a long way, I think, to explaining a lot of arguments today. Though certainly not all of them. As for the split between metropolitan conservatives and rural conservatives, I've never resorted to Greek plays, as Derb does, to explain it. I've always thought of it as city mice versus country mice. But that's neither here nor there.

From a reader:

The National Gambling Impact Study admitted it could not say gambling - especially casino gambling - led to increased crime, bankruptcy, domestic abuse, suicide, and divorce. The report stated numerous times, the need for more studies before a proper conclusion could be drawn.

As a longtime Las Vegas resident, I don’t believe it does. Do people move to this town, burn through their money and bottom out? Yes they do, just like people all over the country do, for all kinds of reasons. Only now, we’re talking about gambling. And, gambling’s naughty. So all the other naughty things in the world are going to show up and hang out with gambling. Because, he’s cool. A little dangerous, but cool. Only once his gang is here, they’ll bugger your bank account and things much worse. Believe me, they’re wrong. I’ve had a lot of time to think about it, sitting here in a debtors’ prison cell down in the bowels of the Bellagio.

As for the e-mailer, always place a wary eye on someone who claims to “love” a person they don’t know. Respect? Yeah, that’s fine. But, love? Unrequited love? That’s better left to the stalkers.

A disgusting ruling asserts that fetuses are body parts no different than skin or hair which can be shed.

Naomi Wolf was on the Ali G show and HBO is refusing to run the interview. Funny how Maureen Dowd missed this yesterday too. Here's the full story from Ananova:

Feminist writer Naomi Wolf has reportedly called in lawyers after being the victim of a spoof interview with Ali G.

She claims she was used for racist humour, after the comic accosted her at a hotel in New York for his new US chat show.

It is thought Wolf was furious when Ali - alias Sacha Baron Cohen - boasted to her that he called his girlfriend, Julie, bitch in bed.

And he got her to rap: "Yo, yo, don't be sexist, I'll let you ride in my Lexus."

He then asked the author - who writes women's rights books - if females would ever fly airliners.

She said they already did, and he said: "No, not the people who hand out the peanuts, but sitting in the pilot's seat."

Ali also joked that if women were given equal rights at work, "they'll want them at home".

US network HBO has decided not to screen the interview, according to The Sun.

Radley Balko offers a very thoughtful critique of me and my defense of Bennett. He dug up one of my favorite editorials from the Wall Street Journal to do it. You should read the whole piece, especially since I've got to walk Cosmo and don't have time to go into it in detail right now. But here's an excerpt and a short response will follow:

Here, it would seem, is the ultimate test for cultural conservatives to prove that "No Guardrails" isn't a partisan excuse to snipe at Hollywood and academic liberals, but rather is a serious commentary on the importance of elitist example-setting.

They failed. With a few notable exceptions from religious right advocacy groups, conservative pundits generally rushed to Bennett's aid. Most, in fact, outright dismissed "No Guardrails" thinking as it applies to Bennett, and instead actually embraced the very type of "elites are allowed to sin, because they can afford to" excuses the Wall Street Journal was so critical of.

National Review's Jonah Goldberg is a fine example, both because of the way he so articulately laid out this position, but also because of his unofficial position as a mouthpiece for younger conservatives.

"Bennett can afford his sins, too," Goldberg writes. "But just as a glutton would be a moral fool to champion gluttony to someone with a heart condition, Bennett understands that a gambler would be a moral fool to champion gambling to people who cannot afford it."

In other words, Bennett — as a rich man and an elite — is subject to a different set of rules than are the common folk. He can gamble all he likes, because he's rich, so long as he doesn't recommend the practice to those less fortunate.

And yes, that in fact is my position. It's not how I would articulate it, but yes I believe we should hold to higher standards in public than we do in private. Hollywood elites would bother me much, much less if they didn't try to rationalize their personal behavior as good for everybody. Queer theorists wouldn't bother me very much if they applied their theory out of sight. Libertarians have a problem understanding or accepting that the public commons requires public self-restraint. We have a tragedy of the commons in moral terms when each person selfishly and egotistically insists that his or her own morals and lifestyle would be good for everybody. As I've quoted Burke saying a million times, mankind learns at the school of examples and will learn from no other. Well, examples must be public, not private, for people to learn from them.

I know my implied -- and expressed -- elitism and anti-populism bothers a lot of people. So be it, I'm always ready to have that argument. I'm sure my position will force me into uncomfortable arguments someetimes, including alas inconsistent ones. But as I've written before consistency is often a red-herring.

Again Bennett gambled too much -- though it's looking more and more that the $8 million number is a gross distortion, Josh Green admitted the other night that Bennett's losses were closer to $1 million. But Bennett didn't flaunt his gambling, he didn't celebrate it, he didn't advocate it for others. Indeed, Green's indictment is that Bennett's in the wrong for gambling in secret. Anyway I could go on, but Cosmo's chuffing at me.

Disturbed British novelist Margaret Drabble has lost her mind. She admits she is consumed by hatred for America over what it "has done to Iraq." The old bird actually prefers the Saddam government, which did this to its people. An excerpt, from the very fine reporting of the NYT's John F. Burns:

His fear is understandable. This building was equipped with torture contraptions that included a sarcophagus, with long nails pointing inward from every surface, including the lid, so victims could be punctured and suffocated.

Another device, witnesses said, was a metal framework designed to clamp over a prisoner's body, with footrests at the bottom, rings at the shoulders and attachment points for power cables, so the victim could be hoisted and subjected to electric shocks.

Saddam perpetrated sarcophagi with long nails pointing inward for use on political prisoners; America inflicts (says Drabble) Coca-Cola. She prefers the former. I'm not making this up. "My anti-Americanism has become almost uncontrollable. It has possessed me, like a disease," she writes, in a coquettish appeal for some sweet lovin' from that beefy Donald Rumsfeld.

Andrew, that's all fine and good and fair. But all of these arguments you and others make about pot v. gambling, individual freedom etc. are all legitimate. But they don't go to whether Bennett's a hypocrite. They go to whether he's wrong or right. Imagine I honestly think stealing avocados isn't theft, but I tell the world not to steal other kinds of produce. If I get caught stealing avocados, I would be a thief and an idiot, but I wouldn't be a hypocrite. Being wrong about gambling -- if he is wrong -- doesn't make Bennett a fraud, it makes him wrong. But for some reason this culture has a real problem saying people are wrong, but thinks it's easy to call people hypocrites. Worse, our culture thinks it's worse to be a hypocrite than to be wrong.

Just got back from Mr. Derbyshire's book signing in SF. He seemed very well received by the audience and big kudos to him for willingly identifying himself as a Republican in this town. He even indulged my request to inscribe "Math is Hard" into my copy of the book, a la Malibu Stacy. Take care and keep up the great work. Perhaps sometime I'll subscribe.

I don't agree with all of this and some of it reads like an independent realization of points written about many times over the years. But it's a compelling little discussion about the differences between liberals and conservatives by a liberal blogger.

From a reader:

Jonah, You are correct, drug use is not the right comparison. However, Bennett has spent a good deal of time condemning television, movie, and music producers for activity that is perfectly legal, but nevertheless, destructive of the things Bennett stands for. Gambling, lotteries and casinos in particular, have been shown (by the National Gambling Impact Study, for example) to increase crime, bankruptcy, domestic abuse, suicide, and divorce. Bennett's immediate reaction to this controversy, "If you can't handle it, don't do it," is to me too similar to the common rejoinder when people such as him criticize television producers, "If you don't like it, turn the channel." One more point. While I love Bennett, and will continue to do so, Bennett has chapters in his books entitled, "Self-discipline," "Work," "Industry and Frugality," and "Honesty." Gambling, even if one can afford it, seems to me to be contrary to these principles. I am disappointed that so many conservatives seem to be focusing on the legality of the activity, rather than the destructiveness of the activity. Sorry, one more point. Gambling is different from drugs in another way, it can be criminalized without the same effects. Indeed, Utah and Hawaii still criminalize all forms of gambling with very few problems. Being that most of the problems come from casino gambling, Bennett's initial reaction does seem, I'm sorry, a bit hypocritical.

John Podhoretz write responds to my self-congratulatory post about Steve Glass with an email headlined "Me Too! Me Too!":

"I remember telling Tucker Carlson, who was Steve Glass's dear friend, at the end of 1995, "You tell your friend Glass I know he's making sh*t up."

John Podhoretz

Correction: John sends an email to say it was 1997. He found the New York Post story he wrote about it. It begins:

'Reporter Stephen Glass went after the conservative conference attendees in a way intended only to injure - by portraying moralists as not-so-secret degenerates. And that's the key to understanding Glass' role as a journalist - and the extraordinary degeneration of the New Republic in the past 10 years.'

THE journalist Stephen Glass made things up, and people knew it. What's more, they knew it long before a resourceful Internet reporter blew Glass's skyrocketing career to bits by making a few phone calls and revealing that a Glass story about a 15-year-old hacker hired by a computer firm was fiction from beginning to end.

My friend Will Saletan argues that Bennett's defenders (me included) are wrong to say Bennett's not a hypocrite because Bennett criticized upscale recreational drug users. I've heard this fifty times now from emailers and radio show hosts and it's still a bogus argument. Gambling is not drug use and drug use is not gambling. Saletan asserts that making the moral hazard argument about smoking pot condemns Bennett for not upholding the same standard for gambling. That's a fine point if Bennett ever considered the two things morally, legally or psychologically equivalent. He never has -- or at least none of the Washington Monthly's and Newsweek's researchers have been to prove he has. Saletan is simply asserting that they are equivalent in both objective reality and in Bennett's own heart. They're neither. Smoking pot is illegal almost everywhere in the United States. Using illegal drugs is -- duh -- illegal everywhere. For this comparison to be apt and for Bennett to be a hypocrite A) gambling would have to be illegal B) Bennett would have to support its illegality C) Bennett would have to have condemned gambling the way he's condemned drug use.

I'm consistently amazed by these liberals who simply assert that gambling is a terrible moral failing and destructive social force simply because, it seems, Bill Bennett does it. Where were Saletan, Kinsley, Green, Marshall and Alter before? Why have they never condemned gambling if they think it's such an obvious sin? Comparing illegal drugs and legal gambling is an apples and oranges comparison, and not just because one is legal and one is illegal (though that is a huge distinction since Bennett is in effect saying that the state has the authority forcibly to prevent you from doing one but has no authority to stop you from doing the other). They are also different because they are simply different things. Simply to assert they are the same and then hijack rhetoric from an apple and apply it to an orange doesn't work.

This guy seems to think so. I'm withholding judgement.

Good article.

I've been an Audible.com customer for almost three years now and it is wonderful. Huge selection with instant gratification of receiving your audio book right away via download. It's the perfect "background music" for working at the computer. Tell all your NRO readers to give it a try!

I love the Ali G show on HBO. I've only seen a few, but they've all been hilarious. You've probably heard the basics already. A British comedian, Sacha Baron Cohen, gets tricked out in gangsta attire and interviews stuffed shirts, eggheads and prominent current and former government officials. He asks them absurd questions and even gets some of them to rap. Anyway, Maureen Dowd has a pretty good description of the show with some very funny quotes.

But what's really annoying and gratuitously cheap about Dowd's column is her total failure to mention a single liberal who's been on the show. She doesn't even mention that Ralph Nader was reportedly going to sue the show for making him look like an idiot and making him rap (some people think he looked like an idiot by rapping, I think that was just the icing on the cake). Why leave this out? I hope her excuse is ignorance. Because if her point was that only Republicans look stiff and silly on the show, she's making her self look lame and foolishly. Dowd's been on this kick for years, of course. She called conservative men the "C-Span and galoshes" crowd more than a decade ago. And has always seemed to believe in a catty way that only people who share her politics can be hip and cool. The problem is her whole schtick is predicated on the myth that she's really clued in to what's happening with the kids today. Remember her embarrassing column on her crush on Eminem? If she can only draw partisan conclusions from the Ali G show, she's not nearly as with it as she thinks she is.

I haven't written a FAQ in a very long time and NRO has lots of new readers (no I don't mean people who've just attained literacy). But I was thinking there might be some burning questions out there that remain un answered. So, send me your questions about everything and anything. What I think about X or Y (X is more symmetrical, Y sounds too nasal) or anything else. Ask how NRO works. Ask for advice about getting into the journalism business or how to eat roadkill. No question is too dumb or too smart. But here are the conditions: I can't answer everything because, despite the tone I sometimes assume, I don't have the answer to everything. All questions must be in English and include at least one noun and one verb. And all questions must be sent to Gfilecorrections@aol.com. My other email addresses cannot handle the load.

I suspect his novel will stink. When the story broke that he made up all of his stuff, everyone in Washington declared "He should write fiction!" and now he has. I never thought his make-believe journalism indicated he'd be good at fiction for the simple reason that he was writing on stilts. I'm sure Derb has better thoughts on this than I, but it seems to me that the great challenge of fiction is create an alternative reality which seems at least plausible and at best real even though the reader knows it's fake. Glass's fictional reporting had the advantage of appearing in a magazine and in a format everyone believed to be literallytrue. This is a huge advantage because the reader has suspended disbelief about facts, even if the reader maintains skepticism about conclusions. Glass didn't have to conjure reality the way a real novelist can. And even now his new book borrows on the credibility of reality to help him make his fiction plausible. There's nothing wrong with that when real journalists do it for legitimate reasons -- William F. Buckley, Joe Klein etc -- but Glass is merely re-victimizing people he took advantage of the first time around, feeding off of their credibility to advance his own career.

I knew Steve Glass and was fairly friendly with him. I use the past tense because he's dead to me now. Okay, not really. But I have little desire to rekindle the relationship either. I knew him primarily through the gang at Slate when I used to work next door to them. But I am a bit proud of the fact that during all of the hullabaloo about what an amazing journalist Glass was, I insisted that he made up his stuff. The only other person I knew who was willing to say so publicly (though sadly for both of us not in print) was Seth Stevenson, then a writer with Slate and now, I believe, a freelance writer. I distinctly remember getting into an argument with a liberal co-worker and several others about Glass' C-PAC piece -- which purported to reveal orgiastic, drug addicted gropers among young conservatives. With echoes of the Bennett story, my colleague couldn't get over her glee that young conservatives were secretly and hypocritically twisted pervs and didn't want even to entertain the idea that a reporter at the sainted New Republic could be making something up.

Of course, the Church of George Bush piece was flatly absurd. And so on. Seth and I used to debate what Glass's motivations might be and developed all sorts of uncharitable theories -- and everyone thought we were nuts. Anyway, I feel sorry for the guys at the New Republic, because they're going to have to endure the self-promoting b.s. of someone who doesn't deserve a second act at the expense of their good name and reputation.

It now appears that the Baghdad museum
wasn't looted. Or, to be more accurate, it wasn't looted after the government was toppled, but before it fell and it was looted by the Iraqi regime itself. It seems to me this is bigger than the babies-torn-from-incubators story from the first Gulf War. The looting of the museum was the thin reed of ridicule for scores of high-profile anti-war types to cling too after it turned out the United States did almost everything else exactly right. If this dark lining on an otherwise silver cloud disappears, what will these guys do with their moral outrage? I'm sure it will go somewhere, but where?

George and Laura could have a Roger Clinton-type situation on their hands if movie dude Ashton Kutcher is telling the truth in the new issue of Rolling Stone:

"So we're hanging out ... The Bushes were underage drinking at my house. When I checked outside, one of the Secret Service guys asked me if they'd be spending the night. I said no. And then I go upstairs to see another friend and I can smell the green wafting out under his door. I open the door, and there he is smoking out the Bush twins on his hookah."

I'm getting a some grief from people for asserting that Bennett gambled "too much." I'm certainly open to the possibility that he hasn't gambled too much. We don't have enough data to be sure. But from the evidence available and given the context, I think he gambled too much. Is my conclusion subjective? Absolutely. But suffice it to say, if this exposé had revealed he gambled $80,000 or $800 no one would care -- just more proof that it's not the activity itself which is all that sinful but the amount of it. Few major sins have such a quantitative aspect. We don't say "Sure, he cheated on his wife but with only one woman." Or, "Yeah, he's a murderer, but he only murdered a littled bit." Bennett's alcohol analogy works perfectly. No one would care if Bennett had an occassional martini (he does), they would care if he ended up on a park bench every night (he doesn't).

I was kind of hoping that Hart would have stayed in and when he lost the primary (pick one), he could have stolen Jack Nicholson's line from "A Few Good Men," yelling at the primary voters:

"You f**kin' people. You have no idea how to defend a nation. All you did was weaken a country today... That's all you did. You put people's lives in danger. Sweet dreams, Democrats."

After all, that was the subtext of his message all along.

I just opened an email titled "Puzzlement with Last G-File." Since it's slow in the Corner, I thought I'd respond at length. First, the email:

Your last G-File was a rather more spirited defense of Bennett than I would have expected. Since you invoked your previous columns on hypocrisy, I thought I'd mention that the Goldberg Hypocrisy Doctrine seems to be undergoing a subtle but (to this observer) sinister transformation. I understood you previously to be saying merely that in certain situations hypocrisy can be the leser of two evils, i.e., if you must do wrong you could at least show enough shame to keep whatever you're doing out of broad daylight instead of flaunting it. However, the utility of that defense would seem to end once you're discovered. At that point, you're in broad daylight and you can only maintain the appearance of probity by, well, maintaining the reality of probity.

To apply the Goldberg Hypocrisy Doctrine (hereinafter "GHD") post-discovery seems to raise the relative defense of hypocrisy to an absolute defense--the wrongdoer may persist in his previous course of misbehavior even with public knowledge, provided (I guess) that the public discovery was due to the actions of others--a point I readily concede in the case of Bennett but which I think is irrelevant. Now that the cat's out of the bag, the only way he can set an example is to abandon gambling, which I'm glad to see he intends to do, although in a welter of statements about how since he could afford it it was OK.

Which brings me to my second and (I'm sure you're grateful) final point. The GHD has always been expressed with the Madonna Corollary (MadCor) to the effect that the rich shouldn't encourage destructive behaviors with consequences that they, but not the nonrich, can partially buy themselves out of. Again, I never understood your previous columns to be condoning those behaviors, even for the rich, only to be making another relative point that Madonna could at least keep her sex life to herself. However, your (apparent) approval of Bennett's "I could afford it" defense seems to likewise elevate MadCor from a relative to absolute point--if you can afford it, there's nothing wrong with it whatsoever. Aside from the problem of moral principles that vary with income tax bracket, I'm very doubtful that the poor will ever be convinced to refrain from behaviors which they are told are perfectly acceptable--once they get more money.

After all this, I'll just say I love your columns and keep up the good work.

My response: Okay, first let me say this guy has not only nailed the Goldberg Hypocrisy Doctrine he has christened it the "Goldberg Hypocrisy Doctrine" (if this was Marvel Comics, he'd win a "no-prize."). A+!

Second, I'm not sure I've contradicted or extended the GHD with my defense of Bennett. I did say that Bennett gambled too much. And I guess I didn't say it here at NRO, but I have said in a couple radio interviews that I do think Bennett did the right thing announcing he will stop gambling. Why? Because he got caught. Unlike Jonathan Rauch and Andrew Sullivan, my reading of "hidden law" is that once you get caught doing something that should have remained private, you cannot rely on the defense that it should be off-limits to public scrutiny. This is why I have such contempt for, say, Scott Ritter when he says his shennanigans with teenage girls should remain private because the public found out about them "unfairly." Who care if it was unfair? I've even defended police "brutality" when it stays out of public view.

But for me the case with Bill Bennett flies under the GHD to a certain extent because I don't think the "sin" is particularly great. I don't condemn gambling (or drinking or smoking or eating for that matter) I just condemn gambling "too much" (Ditto: drinking, smoking, eating "too much"). Do I think Bennett gambled too much? Yes. But, in accordance with GHD, he kept it private, didn't lie about it and didn't celebrate it. Short of not doing it at all, he did everything right. And he did the right thing when he got caught gambling too much. But I hardly think that gambling too much disqualifies him from condemning drug abuse or adultery. But that's clear already.

Wish I'd thought of this first:

On Gambling Problems

From the episode "$pringfield (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling)":

Homer: You know, Marge, for the first time in our marriage I can finally look down my nose at you. You have a gambling problem!

Marge: That's true. Will you forgive me?

Homer: Oh, sure. Remember when I got caught stealing all those watches from Sears?

Marge: Hmm.

Homer: Well, that's nothing, because you have a gambling problem! And remember when I let that escaped lunatic in the house 'cause he was dressed like Santa Claus?

Marge: Hmm.

Homer: Well you have a gambling problem!

(Kudos to porphyrogenitus.

Did you call Mitch Daniels director of OMD? I thought they were an early-eighties synth-pop band from the U.K., most well-known for their song "If You Leave" from the Pretty In Pink soundtrack. I think you meant OMB.....

It seems fairly obvious that competition among private-sector lotteries would tend to increase the payout-to-price ratio. That seems like a fairly clear consumer harm from a state monopoly. As for the government's getting the money from another source: That's not the way conservatives usually look at the creation of new revenue streams. When a state without an income tax proposes to create one, we don't say, Oh well, if we don't go along with this they'll just raise property taxes. And we're right not to view it this way. Revenue should be raised in a way that forces governmental restraint. Having a bunch of little revenue streams, rather than one large tax, makes it easier for government to grow. That's especially true when a revenue stream is not felt as an exaction by the payer.

To put it another way: I like taxes that generate tax revolts from time to time. That's why I'd prefer state governments rely on property taxes rather than sales taxes. And it's why state lotteries seem like an especially bad idea.

from a reader:

Jonah,

drudgereport.com has a link to a Washington Post article about a Teresa Heinz interview in which she repeatedly proclaims "You've got to have a prenup". This raises an obvious (to me at least) question, which nobody seems to be asking:

Why the hell didn't JOHN Heinz have a prenup?

Kicked out of the Labour Party.

A friend e-mails regarding my interview with Hernando de Soto: "I would offer one caveat: Japanese peasantry could be titled with small holdings, as it was rainfall-based, rather like British agriculture. I don't know what percent of Iraqi land is tenable on these terms, but the classical granaries of the Tigris-Euphrates are not. They are hydro-control systems that require extensive state control--the classic formula for all the great totalitarian states of antiquity centered there, as on the Nile,
Hindus, Yellow, etc."

I'm pretty sure my friend is channeling Karl Wittfogel here.

Those are chicken sounds if you weren't sure. They are aimed at our friend Josh Marshall who once again dodges making an argument by saying that the protests of conservatives make the argument for him. Maybe Josh doesn't realize this, but this is precisely the sort of substance-less debate that makes people think liberals are condescending and cowardly. I don't think Josh is either of those things, but as I pointed out before simply saying "see the conservatives are angry about X or Y and therefor X or Y must be true" is one of the lowest and cheapest forms of argumentation around. If Marshall thinks conservative arguments are outlandish on their face, he should link to them and let his readers decide. Even better, explain why they're outlandish. It must be easy, right? Or ignore them entirely (you wouldn't believe how many insults and cheap shots I ignore everyday). But offering opinions without arguments is precisely the sort of thing which has ruined liberalism's image for millions of Americans over the last few decades. And, anyone can simply spout opinions. It's backing them up that makes ones writing worth reading.

Just an FYI.

Ramesh - I completely agree. My position has always been that Vegas and Atlantic City should be the only places in the country where casino gambling should be legal. That would keep it available enough that a blackmarket wouldn't sprout up while at the same time discouraging folks from doing it every day. As for lotteries, I think the public exhortation to gamble by state agencies is outrageous. It also highlights the hypocrisy of Bennett-bashing liberals who are addicted to gambling revenues for public education.

From a reader in Iowa City:

Because your occasional observations regarding hyocrisy are quite apt, I bequeathe to you the following observations. The word for a person utterly free of the vice of hypocrisy is "psychopath." "Let he who is without sins cast the first stone" is advice society cannot afford to follow.

You can participate in absentia. Just print out a couple pages of Tapped and fax it in.

The French help the Iraqis flee. Of course, that is their specialty.

Asgardskeptics offended by the names of the days of the week can follow the advice passed on by this reader:

“One could always adopt the old Quaker custom (still seen on calendars in Friends meeting houses here in the Piedmont of North Carolina) of denominating the days of the week: First Day, Second Day, Third Day, etc. Early Quakers adopted this practice precisely because they did not want to refer to the days of the week by the names of pagan gods. “

I'm with Ramesh. It's no secret I'm a fan of Andrew's. But I took some offense to Sullivan's suggestion that NR (and the Weekly Standard) were adhering to some sort of party discipline on the matter of Bennett. Tapped says I'm spinning, but I have little to no respect for their opinion. I do respect Andrew's opinion, however, and since he made that comment about NR several hours after my piece went up, I have to assume he included me in the broadside.

To be honest, I don't understand Andrew's position. He says he sticks to his original remarks -- that Bennet should be "left alone" -- but then goes on to air all of the criticisms against him. That's fine. Except for the fact that Sullivan is a privacy rights absolutist. We just spent a week reading his denunciations of Rick Santorum and sodomy laws because of their intrusion into the private sphere. His position on Gary Condit was driven by his steadfast faith in a right to privacy, as well. Indeed, his own privacy has been grossly and unfairly violated by a crusading journalist (to use an overly generous term) bent on nothing more than shaming Sullivan. Well, why the equivocation and point-scoring against the "God squad" and "theocons" on the Bennett story? Gary Condit's privacy was violated in pursuit of solving a bizarre murder mystery. Condit lied when the stakes were much, much higher. And, if I recall correctly, Andrew was nevertheless dismayed by the media's pursuit of his private life. Surely, by Sullivan's own admission, what Bennet did was less serious, less hypocritical and more irrelevant than, say, Bill Clinton's behavior or Gary Condit's. And Alter and Green's invasion of Bennett's privacy for purely political ends is less defenisible than the "invasions" of Bill Clinton's privacy -- which Alter and the Washington Monthly steadfastly denounced. If you're going to be a privacy absolutist -- I'm not one -- then you have to be an absolutist for everybody and anybody's privacy -- so long as they haven't broken the law or been grossly hypocritical (two criteria Sullivan concedes the Bennett story does not meet). Otherwise, the right to privacy is fairly meaningless. Sure, Green and Alter are not agents of the government, but that hasn't stopped Andrew from defending the "spirit" of the right to privacy in the face of media intrusions in the past.

Anyway, in my own defense, my position on Bennett is as best I can tell perfectly consistent with literally a dozen or more columns I've written about "hidden law," adultery, hypocrisy, gambling and the rest. The idea that I'm practicing some sort of party loyalty -- "discipline" in Andrew's words -- is ludicrous and offensive if that's what Andrew meant. My hope is that he misspoke.

Andrew Sullivan says that he's "amazed that no one at National Review or the Weekly Standard has even the mildest criticism [of Bennett] to offer" and adds that social conservatives "are a disciplined political bunch." Well, Jonah offered some mild criticism ("I think Bennett gambles too much and I completely understand why opponents of gambling and decent people generally are disappointed in Bennett"), as has Rod (below). I've linked to, albeit without commenting on, Ross Douthat's criticism (also below).

But let's say none of those things had been published. What would have been so amazing about our silence? Have we been notably censorious about other people who gamble too much? If you're a "social conservative" on one issue, do you have to be one on all the others? (In which case, Andrew Sullivan, who opposes embryonic stem-cell research, is socially conservative and National Review, which opposes the drug war, isn't.)

Several Bennett critics have suggested that he never went after gambling because of his weakness in this area. In effect, they are criticizing him for his lack of hypocrisy (and, of course, criticizing him for his hypocrisy at the same time). Sullivan wants to put social conservatives in another double bind: If they condemn Bennett, they're theocratic scolds; if they don't, they're hypocrites. But neither conclusion makes any sense.

Tapped feels sorry for me because Bennett has admitted he's "done too much gambling" and that has set a bad example. Tapped feels this makes me look foolish somehow. Of course I wrote "Bennett gambles too much." And the only reason this set a bad example is because the authors I tried to "discredit" publicized the fact that he gambles too much -- while criticizing him for gambling in secret. So, once again, I have no idea what Tapped is talking about. It would be nice if Tapped offered an actual argument from time to time. But when you write anonymously, why bother?

"We were disappointed to learn that our longtime friend, Dr. Bill Bennett, is dealing with what appears to be a gambling addiction. One of the reasons Focus on the Family continues to be strongly opposed to any form of gambling is because it has the power to ensnare and wound not only its victims, but also those closest to them. 'Gaming,' as the industry euphemistically refers to itself, is a cancer on the soul of the nation.

"We commend Dr. Bennett for acknowledging his problem and for stating emphatically, 'My gambling days are over.' Our prayers will be with him and his family in the days ahead."

From a reader at the University of Chicago:

Mr. Goldberg,

About a month ago I was walking across the lovely, Gothic campus of the U of C when I encountered a display set up by Lyndon Larouche supporters. I was approached by a young women who loudly stated: "Did you know the children of Satan were educated here at Chicago by Leo Strauss?" Knowing nothing about Leo Strauss or the children of Satan (according to the best Simpson's Halloween episode, that would be Rod and Tod right?) I just kept walking. Having seen your entry about the Times and Leo Strauss, I find it interesting that the New York Times and Lyndon LaRouche seem to be on the same page here. Oh well, if the Baath party and Al-Quaeda can work together, why not those two?

From a reader:

I love seeing conservatives tie themselves in knots trying to explain why it's fine for Bill Bennett to make a living as an officious prig and then engage in a life of sin. Interesting how the Right has suddenly adopted the "It's legal, so it's ok," standard.

If it was you, Rich Lowry, or George Will who liked getting taken to the cleaners by video games, it would be one thing. But when a man whose only public function has been to assert some ephemeral connection between private vices and public legitimacy is caught doing something unseemly, what's wrong with pointing out the rank hypocrisy?

Finally, who cares that Bennett has always exempted gambling from his parade of horribles that are dragging us to Gomorrah? Why are conservatives being so
charitable about such a self-serving explanation? You made the rules of the
moral gotcha game, and now you whine when they are applied to your favorite
stuffed shirts.

My response: I don't think much of this email covers ground not covered in my column. But there are two points in the last graf which deserve responding to. First, there's nothing about Bill Bennett which qualifies him as a stuffed shirt, except the silly stereotype I referred to earlier. More important it is a lie that conservatives started the "gotcha game." If we're going to play "who started it?" then we must look to the John Tower affair, the Robert Bork confirmation, and the Clarence Thomas hearings. We should also look to Bob Packwood. I was always astounded that privacy mavens didn't raise a fuss when the State decided to rummage through the man's diary. Almost by definition, diaries are the most private things in the world. Yes, conservatives got into this game too. But to fight fire with fire. It was only then that liberals started to whine about the "politics of personal destruction."

I feel like such a boob. While we're all jabbering about Bill Bennett we are ignoring the only holiday I'm aware of which celebrates the military defeat of the French in this hemisphere. Crack open a cerveza!

I am not a big believer in reading too much into ideology when it comes to character. I know plenty of decent, honest and friendly liberals and I know more than a few asses who count themselves as conservatives.

But, in thinking about this Bennett thing, reading Josh Marshall's response (where he talks about Casinos as if they are the source of cooties) and countless emails from readers, I've got to say it's interesting how much the reality differs from the stereotype when it comes to liberals and conservatives.

This has been a pet peeve of mine for quite a while, as liberals like Maureen Dowd have insisted that conservatives are the biggest geeks in the world while liberals are decidedly un-nerdy. I wrote about this in the Wall Street Journal in 1996.

Now, there are obviously many, many, many nerdy conservatives out there. Quite a few write for this site -- and we're delighted to have them. And when I really get a Star Trek vibe going, I'm hardly immune to the charge myself. But as a general rule, the liberal writers and editors I've met since I've been in Washington certainly have been more earnest, more uptight and more akin to the guys who were rejected from Animal House (I can't remember their names, but one of them was a Sikh, I think) and the conservatives have been a lot cooler. In fact, I think this is a slice of a larger trend which NRO has been relatively successful exploiting. Conservatives have grown tired with being labeled poindexters by über poindexters (See my discussion of Michael Lind in the article linked above). This was an issue addressed by David Brook's book " Backward and Upward: The New Conservative Writing which tried to show that conservatives are not only right on the issues, but
are actually fully-formed human beings as well.

Of course, all of this depends on what you mean by cool or nerdy for that matter. But whatever your definition, the nerd-equals-conservative stereotype is played out.

'A number of stories in the media have reported that I have engaged in high stakes gambling over the past decade. It is true that I have gambled large sums of money. I have also complied with all laws on reporting wins and losses.

Nevertheless, I have done too much gambling, and this is not an example I wish to set. Therefore, my gambling days are over...'

I drink too much, I eat too much, I gamble but not too much, really. I like the track. I play poker with friends and I've been to Atlantic City, Las Vegas and other locations for the expressed purpose of wagering on more occassions than I could easily count. I don't think the world should follow my example on any of these things. But, like Bill Bennett, I think lying under oath, terrorism, quickie divorces etc are wrong. If the former disqualifies me to believe the latter in your eyes, so be it.

Thanks for all of the feedback on Bill Bennett over the weekend. Many good points made. But I take a pretty hardline in today's Goldberg File. I think the Washington Monthly should be ashamed of itself.

Every few years the New York Times discovers that some neoconservatives revere the late political philoshopher Leo Strauss. And so, every few years, the Times worries about Strauss. This year, that old devil Strauss is even scarier because Neocons are even scarrier. Yesterday, the New York Times did a big piece on Leo Strauss and his supposed disciples running the world. They even had a sidebar (not on the web) with mugshots of various "Leo-Cons."

That's all fine and dandy. But just once it would be nice to see a similar take on all of the liberal figures in government influenced by the writings of Karl Marx.

Between now and January 2009, whatever Bush does he'll always be a dummy to the smart set. So the "strong horse" can fly a jet across the Pacific? Big deal. You can take a horse to water, but you can't make him think.

This time, in the UN.

Via Instapundit

By Helen Dewar in today's Washington Post. I was too lazy to dig up the link. I got it out of Nexis:

Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.) has often referred to his late father's union days, back in Missouri, when the future House member was still a boy, and a job driving a milk truck and a strong union helped keep the family afloat.

"My dad was a milk truck driver, a proud member of the Teamsters," Gephardt said earlier this year while announcing his candidacy. "He always told me his union's bargaining power made it possible for him to put food on our table."

It's a common tic among presidential contenders -- emphasizing their ties to "regular people," underscoring their "up by the bootstraps" stories. And for Gephardt, the anecdote has the added bonus of reminding voters of his long ties to and support for organized labor.

But his brother, it seems, remembers their father's relationship with his union a little bit differently. In 1999, Donald L. Gephardt told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that their dad "felt like a victim of the system." He added, "I don't recall him talking much about the union, about how great it was."

"He prided himself on being a Republican. He hated [Harry S.] Truman," the elder brother, dean of the fine arts college at New Jersey's Rowan University, told the paper. "He had the feeling that you had to make it on your own -- that any kind of welfare program would just raise his taxes."

Who has the better memory?

A spokeswoman for the candidate said Gephardt stands by his version, saying he was not commenting on his father's opinion of his job or union, but on the benefits it provided him. "Don sees it as one thing, and Dick sees it as another," said spokeswoman Kim Molstre.

I've gotten maybe a couple hundred emails from readers in response to my Bennett query. I'm still going through them but I think I've got a representative sample, so please no more. Generally, responses are all over the map. But I'll save my thoughts for tomorrow's column. I'm off to CNN now.