HYPOCRISY IN 'SIN' CITY

It is, of course, the size of his alleged gambling losses that has us
clucking our tongues over William J. Bennett's recent public embarrassment.
The fact that he writes and speaks on virtue -- that he has become a highly
remunerated public scold on the subject -- is just added seasoning.

I mean, $8 million in losses in a decade! Surely that's immoral -- and just
as surely it must make Bennett a hypocrite (although he has never
specifically listed gambling among the vices he has called on us to abandon).

Would we be having this conversation if Newsweek and the Washington Monthly
had revealed that the former drug czar to the first President Bush had lost
several hundred dollars playing the slots? Well, no, but he lost 8 million
bucks! Two things about that. First, the reporters never said that the $8
million represented a net loss. Bennett himself implied that he had come
close to breaking even over the years. Second, there's no suggestion that
Bennett, whose honorariums can run to $50,000 a speech, has stolen money,
become indebted to the mob or impoverished his family.

And we don't care. We'd be clucking just as furiously if Bill Gates were
found to have gambled away $8 million. It's the number of zeroes that has
us in a tizzy.

Okay, some of us believe that gambling is wrong. But a lot of us don't. How
else do you think those state-run lotteries generate so much action? I
always buy a few tickets when the jackpot gets above a certain number of
millions. Does that make me less moral than if I invested the same amount
of money in a stock market that lately has treated me unkindly? Wouldn't it
be immoral only if my bets compromised my ability to meet my obligations?

So does our criticism of Bennett make us as hypocritical as we accuse him
of being? I don't think so. I don't know what Bennett earned in the past 10
years, but surely $8 million is a substantial part of it. Gambling at those
levels, to my mind at least, suggests a problem -- at best a loss of
perspective, at worst an addiction. Or in Bennett's lexicon: a sin.

A sin, I mean, as surely as drug abuse, overuse of alcohol and other
personal failings on Bennett's public censure list are sins. Why would he
exempt his sin and punish yours?

For Ethan Nadelmann, who runs the Drug Policy Alliance, that is the heart
of Bennett's hypocrisy: his assigning of some "sins" for public punishment
while he exempts others as none of the public's business.

"Gambling addiction is very much like drug addiction," says Nadelmann,
whose organization advocates decriminalizing marijuana use. "The high you
get, what happens physically to the brain of a gambler, is quite similar to
what happens to the brain of a person on cocaine. There is a further
similarity in the fact that the large majority of gamblers and drug users
do no harm to anyone else. A minority of both do go to extremes and harm
others."

Nadelmann's point? Actually, he has several points.

Behavior that does no harm to other people shouldn't be the business of the
state.

Behavior that harms others should be punished -- and its source in
addiction is no exoneration.

When people engage in risky behavior and stumble but cause no harm to
others, our first response should be to offer help in getting their lives
together again.

But doesn't such mollycoddling encourage risky behavior? Maybe. But no one
calls it mollycoddling when lifeguards try to save people who swim too far
from shore or when teams of mountain climbers risk their lives to rescue
someone who tried a too-dangerous climb.

Bennett, without ever admitting that he has done wrong, says he will quit
gambling. That's fine with Nadelmann. Suppose he tries, then relapses.
Then, says Nadelmann, let him try again.

Nearly half a million Americans are in prison for nonviolent drug offenses
on the theory that the threat of prison is the only way to keep them away
from drugs and in their rehab programs. Says Nadelmann:

"Bill Bennett wouldn't choose the threat of jail to keep himself away from
the casino. You can bet on that."