Thursday, May 15, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Backstory: Addicted to hypocrisy

By Michael Green

The hypocrites are out in force these days.

Let's start by joining those piling on William Bennett, the nation's self-appointed moral arbiter. Bennett confirmed reports that he gambled about $8 million at Las Vegas and Atlantic City casinos, but said not to worry: Not only does his moral crusade not include gambling, but he had pretty much broken even anyway, and now he would quit.

This is known among psychologists as rationalization. Not that gambling is immoral, but many who support Bennett, and whom Bennett cultivates, believe it is. For Bennett to claim gambling is exempt from his list of what's wrong with America could be called disingenuous, but it would be more accurate to call it a convenient lie.

Bennett's situation reveals him for the hypocrite he is--and not because he gambles. When Bennett was drug czar, moralizing that we should all just say no, he was a heavy smoker--again, no crime. But nicotine is an addictive drug.

Gambling need not be an addiction. But when Bennett justifies gambling $8 million on the grounds that he was only at the slot machines and could easily afford it, he excuses himself for the kind of behavior for which he criticizes others.

He might be a sympathetic figure if he showed sympathy for the faults of others. But he never has and probably never will. So, while your private life should be your business, those who claim otherwise, as Bennett and many of his right-wing apologists do, deserve every bit of snideness they get when they fall short in their own right.

For his frailty to involve gambling makes it doubly ironic. In recent years, gambling has spread from Nevada across the country, leavening its image as the worst of all vices. Had Bennett done this even 20 years ago, his fellow right-wingers would have staked him to an ant hill and spread molasses over him. Today, they are more inclined to defend him, and while this displays their own hypocrisy, it also reflects an improved public perception of Nevada's major industry--and a sign of the decline of civilization that Bennett and his ilk so often decry and blame on everyone else.

By the way, it also shows why Republicans have been more successful at politics than Democrats have been lately. Republicans like George W. Bush and his acolytes question the patriotism of anyone who dares to question them, but have no problem smearing others. Like them, Bennett apparently never walks by a mirror, so they needn't face themselves. That tendency makes campaigning much easier.

Continuing with hypocrites, Sen. John McCain of Arizona is reintroducing his plan to ban betting on college sports.

The hypocrisy is multifold. First, McCain and his abetters at the NCAA--an organization that regards truth and dissent much as the Gestapo did--want to stamp out gambling on college sports. But never mind the greater problem: illegal gambling, which the NCAA does next to nothing to stop, even on the college campuses where the organization actually has influence. And if the NCAA is so concerned about threats to the integrity of its sports, why does it take money from sponsors and networks with the discretion of a two-dollar hooker?

Second, the most recent betting scandals involving college sports have come to light largely through the efforts of Nevada race and sports book operators. How does the NCAA propose to police illegal gamblers? It has had so much success keeping coaches on the straight and narrow, so it should have no trouble with Three-Finger Louie and Icepick Rick.

Third, McCain gambles heavily whenever a craps table leaps in front of him. His justification, like Bennett's, involves rationalization: He gambles, but he is an adult, and college sports betting affects our youth. If McCain thinks the only people involved in college sports betting can't get into X-rated movies, he needs to spend less time in the Arizona sun. And if he thinks anyone with a brain doesn't realize he is as big a moralizing hypocrite as Bennett, he will take the points if Duke's basketball team schedules a preschool next season.

Oddly, McCain reflects the view of Estes Kefauver, the senator from Tennessee who conducted an investigation of organized crime in the early 1950s. From a full day of studying Las Vegas, he concluded that organized crime interests were involved in gaming here. You had to get up pretty early to sneak one past Kefauver.

Many saw Kefauver as heroic for taking on the corrupt big-city bosses. He was. But he wanted to be president, and couldn't do it with politics under their control, so he had to blast his way in. And while many of his targets deserved whatever they got, he indulged in guilt by association, as Sen. Joseph McCarthy did. And Kefauver was a gambler. When Meyer Lansky asked him, "What's so bad about gambling? You like it yourself. I know you've gambled a lot," Kefauver said, "That's right. But I don't want you people to control it."

Granting the validity of his point, Kefauver should have remembered that people who live in glass houses shouldn't do much of anything. Bennett, McCain and their allies are vastly worse. They claim to dislike gambling, but gamble with our own well-being. Whatever Bennett and McCain may be able to afford when they enter a casino, we can't afford that.