Bill Bennett is a jackass.

Overview

A prominent Republican pundit and a supposed spokesman for conservatives is a guy named Bill Bennett. Bennett was the Education Secretary in Reagan's second term, and in Bush 41's administration, he was the "drug czar" (in charge of the war on drugs). From there he became the self-appointed arbiter of culture and morality. Oh, I forgot to mention that he is also abrasive, self-righteous, and arrogant. Toss in a good bit of hypocrisy and bullshit, and you have a grade-A jackass.

What follows is a partial explanation of why I say Bennett is a jackass. The events described are old news, as they occurred in 2003 and in the fall of 2005. However, they exemplify what Bill Bennett is all about.

This post is intended as a precursor to the next post, which will discuss Gerald Ford's views on the Iraq war and Bennett's reaction thereto, which shows that he is still a jackass.

Bill Bennett has what many would call a lapse in morality.

Bennett has made a career out of telling people what is right and moral, and he has done so in an abvrasive, condescending manner. That in and of itself would not warrant my criticism. However, it turns out that Bennett has a greater than minor problem with something that most of his family values allies would find objectionable. Not only that, but a group led by Bennett has railed against this particular activity. All that adds up to abject hypocrisy, and that warrants my criticism.

See, it turns out that Bennett has a gambling problem. A big gambling problem. The June 2003 issue of the Washington Monthly had an article by Joshua Green entitled "The Bookie of Virtue" which described this aspect of Bennett's "character:"

Few vices have escaped Bennett's withering scorn. He has opined on everything from drinking to "homosexual unions" to "The Ricki Lake Show" to wife-swapping. There is one, however, that has largely escaped Bennett's wrath: gambling. This is a notable omission, since on this issue morality and public policy are deeply intertwined. During Bennett's years as a public figure, casinos, once restricted to Nevada and New Jersey, have expanded to 28 states, and the number continues to grow. In Maryland, where Bennett lives, the newly elected Republican governor Robert Ehrlich is trying to introduce slot machines to fill revenue shortfalls. As gambling spreads, so do its associated problems. Heavy gambling, like drug use, can lead to divorce, domestic violence, child abuse, and bankruptcy. According to a 1998 study commissioned by the National Gambling Impact Study Commission, residents within 50 miles of a casino are twice as likely to be classified as "problem" or "pathological" gamblers than those who live further away.

If Bennett hasn't spoken out more forcefully on an issue that would seem tailor-made for him, perhaps it's because he is himself a heavy gambler. Indeed, in recent weeks word has circulated among Washington conservatives that his wagering could be a real problem. They have reason for concern. The Washington Monthly and Newsweek have learned that over the last decade Bennett has made dozens of trips to casinos in Atlantic City and Las Vegas, where he is a "preferred customer" at several of them, and sources and documents provided to The Washington Monthly put his total losses at more than $8 million.

(emphasis added). Read the article for the details of Bennett's gambling activities and his denials that he had a problem. Perhaps even more revealing than those details was the description of Bennett's "defense" of his gambling.

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."

Nice. But wait, there's more...It turns out that Bennett was a co-chair for a group called Empower America, and that group opposed the expansion of casino gambling in the states. Indeed, Bennett's co-chair, Jack Kemp, wrote an editorial in which he criticized lawmakers who favored casino gambling by claiming they wanted to "pollute our society with a slot machine on every corner." Not only that, but Empower America

published an Index of Leading Cultural Indicators, with an introduction written by Bennett, that reports 5.5 million American adults as "problem" or "pathological" gamblers. Bennett says he is neither because his habit does not disrupt his family life.

What a guy. He can rail against gambling in general, but for him it is no problem engaging in that same behavior he generally condemns. Let me make something clear. I am not condemning gambling. I've been to casinos. I've gambled, and I have enjoyed it. I even did legal work for a group that was trying to establish casino gambling in a state. However, I have not publicly opposed the expansion of casino gambling, not have I publicly preached the evils of gambling. Bennett has done both both through his organization. Moreover, I have not made a career out of abrasively telling people how they should live their lives. Bennett, on the other hand, has. And that is what makes his gambling and defense of it galling.

One other event in particular shows Bennett's true character.

Abortion, crime rates, and racism

On Bennett's syndicated radio show on September 28, 2005, a caller was discussing a lack of revenue for Social Security, and said he had read some articles claiming that if none of the abortions after Roe v. Wade had not taken place, there would have ben enough people to fund Social Security. Clearly, this caller was taking a very strong pro-life position. Bennett stated that such a claim was not necessarily supported by statistics, and he said he would not base a pro-life position on such a claim. And then Bennett decided to go out where the buses don't run. Here's the transcript of what was said:

BENNETT: Maybe, maybe, but we don't know what the costs would be, too. I think as -- abortion disproportionately occur among single women? No.

CALLER: I don't know the exact statistics, but quite a bit are, yeah.

BENNETT: All right, well, I mean, I just don't know. I would not argue for the pro-life position based on this, because you don't know. I mean, it cuts both -- you know, one of the arguments in this book Freakonomics that they make is that the declining crime rate, you know, they deal with this hypothesis, that one of the reasons crime is down is that abortion is up. Well --

CALLER: Well, I don't think that statistic is accurate.

BENNETT: Well, I don't think it is either, I don't think it is either, because first of all, there is just too much that you don't know. But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky.

(emphasis added). Remember in particular the words which are italicized and in bold type. These statements caused a stir, to say the least. Bennett gave several explanations that amounted to a steaming pile of crap. First, he claimed that the author of Freakonomics, Steve Levitt "discusses, as I did, the racial implications of abortion and crime. And he does that in an extended debate on Slate.com." This was utter bullshit, as on the first day of the Slate.com discussion, Levitt stated the following:

As an aside, it has been both fascinating and disturbing to me how the media have insisted on reporting this as a study about race, when race really is not an integral part of the story. The link between abortion and unwantedness, and also between unwantedness and later criminality, have been shown most clearly in Scandinavian data. Abortion rates among African-Americans are higher, but overall, far more abortions are done by whites. None of our analysis is race-based because the crime data by race is generally not deemed reliable.

Then, when Levitt heard about Bennett's falsehood, he responded by saying that "Race is not an important part of the abortion-crime argument that John Donohue and I have made in academic papers and that [co-author Stephen J.] Dubner and I discuss in Freakonomics."

Next, Bennett claimed that he was simply posing a hypothetical in order to dismiss it. Here's Bennett's technical explanation: "As a philosopher, I was showing the limitation of one argument by showing the absurdity of another. I was showing the fallacy of a proposition by using what's called an argumentum ad absurdum or an argumentum ad finum." So, Bennett was saying that he disagreed with the abortion/crime theory of Levitt. Bennett went on to point out that he had said on September 28, 2005, that his argumentum ad absurdum would be impossible, ridiculous, and morally-reprehensible. Bennett felt that should have ended all discussion and criticism of him, but he overlooked one thing. While he seemed to reject Levitt's theory in general, he specifically said that it was valid as to black people. As Levitt stated:

There is one thing I would take Bennett to task for: first saying that he doesn't believe our abortion-crime hypothesis but then revealing that he does believe it with his comments about black babies. You can't have it both ways.

Unless you are Bill Bennett, that is.

But Bennett was not finished in trying to defend, justify, and/or explain away his original statements. On September 29, 2005, Bennett appeared on Fox News's "Hannity and Colmes," and he compared his comments to a great historical piece of satire when he said "This is like Swift's 'Modest Proposal,' for people who remember their literature." "A Modest Proposal" was a satiric essay was written in 1729, and it suggested that the solution to hunger and overpopulation problems in Ireland was for the poor to sell their children as food. "Swift" would be Jonathan Swift, who wrote Gulliver's Travels, and was arguably the foremost satirist in the history of the English-speaking world. For Bennett to compare his comments to Swift is as laughable as saying that Michael Savage displays the erudition of William F. Buckley. Swift's essay was clearly satire for two reasons. First, his "modest proposal" was insane and reprehensible. It is true that Bennett's statements about aborting black babies and the crime rate shared these characteristics, and it is true that Bennett said as much. However, the second reason why Swift's writing was clearly satirical is found in what he wrote in addition to his insane proposal:

Therefore let no man talk to me of other expedients...taxing our absentees...using [nothing] except what is of our own growth and manufacture...rejecting...foreign luxury...introducing a vein of parsimony, prudence and temperance...learning to love our country...quitting our animosities and factions...teaching landlords to have at least one degree of mercy towards their tenants....Therefore I repeat, let no man talk to me of these and the like expedients, 'till he hath at least some glympse of hope, that there will ever be some hearty and sincere attempt to put them into practice.

In other words, Swift was pointing out the reforms that he was in actuality promoting through deriding them in the tone established by the fictional narrator of the essay. This fits the definition of "satire:" irony, sarcasm, or caustic wit used to attack or expose folly, vice, or stupidity. Someone point out the irony, sarcasm, or wit in Bennett's comments. Don't look too hard, for they aren't there. Instead, what Bennett did was say that he would not promote the idea of aborting black babies to lower the crime rate, but then he said that the idea would work.

But Bennett still was not finished. He employed favorite tactics of the GOP in general and the Bush administration in particular--fallaciously redefine the issue and then falsely accuse your critics. On October 5, 2005, Bennett was once again on the Fox News Channel--this with Neil Cavuto--and on James Dobson's radio program. On each program he said the issue about his comments was abortion and that it was his liberal critics who were in reality in favor of aborting black babies. Yeah, that perfectly rational. As Rep. John Conyers (D.-Mich.) pointed out, the issue was not abortion but racism in claiming that "African Americans are synonymous with crime." And remember, Levitt--the co-author of Freakonaomics and the guy who Bennett attempted to pin this on initially--stated that "the crime data by race is generally not deemed reliable." But Bill Bennett, after having his other defenses exposed as bullshit, just had to find some way out of the mess he put himself in, so he had to change the focus of the discussion and then spout an equally crazy theory that liberals have an abort-black-babies agenda.

Notice that Bennett never apologized in any way for his statements. He never even conceded that they could have been interpreted to have the meaning some thought they have. And he never retracted his statement that aborting every black baby would result in a decrease in the crime rate.

What a jackass.