William Bennett admits his gambling was a sin
The Layman Online, July 29, 2003
Cultural commentator William Bennett now says that gambling for him was a sin and that he regrets his behavior.
Bennett told Tim Russert on CNBC July 26 that he “way overdid it. I gambled too much, and I think I gambled too much given who I am and what I do.”
In May, Newsweek disclosed that Bennett was a high-roller who gambled away millions of dollars in Las Vegas casinos. His immediate reaction was that gambling was not a sin.
But his response has been markedly more repentant since then. He told WORLD magazine (August 9 issue), “It was a sin because it was a bad use of time and resources. Mortal sin? Venial sin? Something in the middle? I have no idea. But excess, for sure.”
Bennett is a Catholic, and the Roman Catholic Church does not regard gambling as a sin. Most Protestant denominations do, however.
“I let people down,” Bennett, author of The Book of Virtues and former U.S. drug czar, told WORLD. “I let people down who were looking to me, whether I wanted to be looked to or not, who were taking me and my counsel seriously, and who just felt disappointed in me. Let down – maybe worse.
“The message is the same. The validity of the message doesn’t depend on the messenger. But, the better the messenger, the more plausible the message can be to the listener – not the more accurate or more correct, but more plausible. In that sense, I made my own message less plausible.”
Bennett said on CNBC that he is “not a hypocrite” because he “never said gambling is a terrible thing [or that] people should stop gambling.”
“I hope it hasn’t hurt my ability to have a conversation with the American people,” he told Russert. “I don’t want it to. What I did was excessive, was wrong, it was a mistake. That’s over. I’ve got to move on to other things.”
Bennett said reports that he lost $8 million are wrong.
“I don’t really think the amounts are anybody’s business but the family’s and the IRS,” he said on CNBC, adding that all of his earnings were reported to the government.
Bennett also addressed those who took delight in seeing “me getting whacked.” He called it a “perverse kind of reaction.”
He told Russert that he has remained positive throughout the ordeal. “I’m up, and I’m back, and nobody’s going to drive me out of public life,” he said.
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