Rank Hypocrisy (Charges)

It was arguably a two-day story, or one that never should have been written in the first place: Virtue czar Bill Bennett played a lot of high-stakes slots and video poker in Las Vegas and Atlantic City over the last ten years. The authors of two simultaneously published articles—one in Newsweek, the other in The Washington Monthly—were at pains to explain why they wrote the pieces in the first place, invading the privacy of a public figure who’d broken no laws, told the truth, and committed no obvious hypocrisy (since he’d never railed against gambling).

One argument was that Bennett had sinned, and that since Bennett speaks out against sin, he must be a hypocrite. Writing in the Los Angeles Times, libertarian columnist Norah Vincent articulated her ignorance of both religion and conservatism by insisting that “there can be no doubt where the Christian Right stands on the issue” and that “Hellfire conservatives”—her label for Bill Bennett and me—know that gambling is a sin. Of course, because he is not an idiot, Bennett never claimed he was without sin. More important, his own faith does not forbid gambling. “Gambling is not a sin; it’s not illegal. He didn’t condemn it and then contradict himself,” declared an unexpected defender, fellow Catholic Mario Cuomo. “He didn’t hurt anyone. He didn’t lie about it; he didn’t try to hide it.” Gambling is “not among the seven great sins or even among the 70 small ones.” Considering Cuomo’s convoluted defense of abortion, Bennett may have hoped for support elsewhere; regardless, Cuomo is correct. Bennett was no more hypocritical for gambling than he is for not keeping kosher. Critics like Vincent seemed to translate their shock that any conservative “moralist” could have any kind of “normal” fun at all into prima facie evidence of hypocrisy.

It was arguably a two-day story, or one that never should have been written in the first place: Virtue czar Bill Bennett played a lot of high-stakes slots and video poker in Las Vegas and Atlantic City over the last ten years. The authors of two simultaneously published articles—one in Newsweek, the other in The Washington Monthly—were at pains to explain why they wrote the pieces in the first place, invading the privacy of a public figure who’d broken no laws, told the truth, and committed no obvious hypocrisy (since he’d never railed against gambling).

One argument was that Bennett had sinned, and that since Bennett speaks out against sin, he must be a hypocrite. Writing in the Los Angeles Times, libertarian columnist Norah Vincent articulated her ignorance of both religion and conservatism by insisting that “there can be no doubt where the Christian Right stands on the issue” and that “Hellfire conservatives”—her label for Bill Bennett and me—know that gambling is a sin. Of course, because he is not an idiot, Bennett never claimed he was without sin. More important, his own faith does not forbid gambling. “Gambling is not a sin; it’s not illegal. He didn’t condemn it and then contradict himself,” declared an unexpected defender, fellow Catholic Mario Cuomo. “He didn’t hurt anyone. He didn’t lie about it; he didn’t try to hide it.” Gambling is “not among the seven great sins or even among the 70 small ones.” Considering Cuomo’s convoluted defense of abortion, Bennett may have hoped for support elsewhere; regardless, Cuomo is correct. Bennett was no more hypocritical for gambling than he is for not keeping kosher. Critics like Vincent seemed to translate their shock that any conservative “moralist” could have any kind of “normal” fun at all into prima facie evidence of hypocrisy.