You're Both Wrong

Joshua Micah Marshall doesn't like the New York Times op-ed piece by Jim McManus about William Bennett's gambling problem, which Marshall blogged yesterday and I picked up from him. Marshall hits, correctly, on errors of fact on McManus's part: a net loss of $8 million over the course of many months is not the same thing as putting $8 million "into play." (Last month, during a weekend trip to Las Vegas I sat down three times in that $50-$100 stud/8 game I mentioned yesterday, buying in each time for $2,000. Did I put $2,000 "into play" or $6,000?)

But Marshall gets it wrong about this statement by McManus:

All of us gamble. Air travel, dating, investments, education, even driving or walking to work are not for the risk-averse. Vastly more is at stake when conceiving a child than when Mr. Bennett plays video poker, yet married couples are treated to no finger-jabbing sermons when they roll the dice on reproduction.

I'm not sure I've read a group of sentences more fatuous or morally shrunken as these in some time, writes Marshall. Gambling may be harmless fun, but can't you distinguish between that sort of risk and the one people take when they bring a new life into the world? It seems to me that McManus is making precisely that distinction. The potential risks and rewards hanging on the pull of a $500 slot machine are small potatoes indeed compared to both the risks and rewards of becoming a parent. And a gambler who has taken odds on all her pass line and come bar bets so that all the numbers on the craps table are working for her may well feel anxious about the fear that the shooter's next throw might seven out ... but she can always take down her odds and walk away. Can a mother do that? Or even a small business owner, who gets ulcers wondering if this month's sales are going to be enough to make payroll?

I fail to see the moral shrinkage. In a world where risk and fear surrounds us every day, despite our best efforts to reduce and contain them, so that accepting and dealing with risk is an essential part of sane adult functioning behavior, what is wrong with taking risks for pleasure in the (relatively) safe and controlled environment of a casino?

I see where McManus is coming from, in a way that I think perhaps is escaping Marshall. McManus isn't defending Bennett; McManus is defending gambling. He is saying, in effect, we shouldn't be piling on Bennett, because gambling is in fact not immoral:

As a finger-jabber himself on some subjects, [McManus writes just after Marshall ends his quote] Mr. Bennett should perhaps be more alert to such ironies. Still, if he pays his taxes and abides by the law, we should keep our noses out of his personal life.

This is where McManus misses the point of Bennett's critics. The morality of gambling may be in dispute. But so is the morality of so many of the activities at which Bennett has jabbed his finger. Most gay people who have come out and come to terms with their own desires, for example, would say that they are moral people notwithstanding whom it is they are drawn to love. For that matter, it's easy enough to find people who see nothing wrong with a married man accepting a blowjob from an eager intern, something that Bennett has decried in no uncertain terms.

Bennett's hypocrisy is evident because the morality of gambling is in dispute. And one of the reasons for this dispute is the fact to which McManus seems blind, is that compulsive gambling is a real problem, that people really do come to harm and bring harm to their families as a consequence of their losing control of their gambling. McManus's op-ed piece comes off to me as a lesser version of one of Nolan Dalla's pollyanna-ish denials of the dark side of gambling.

It's easy to pile onto Bennett for his hypocrisy. As those of us who remember Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart can tell, Americans just love to see preaching moralists brought down by their own sins. (And the penitent sinner plays almost as well, as those who have played the role have been finding out since the days of Augustine.)

But what nobody else appears to be saying about Bennett's fall from grace is quite how stupid it is. If there's anything more lame, more foolish, than blowing $8 million on high-limit slot machines I don't know what it is. (Unless, that is, there is such a thing as $500-per-spot Keno, where the runners strolling through Bellagio's high end restaurants like Circo or Picasso, are the sort of sophisticated, well-dressed young ladies one expects to see nursing glasses of mineral water at the Baccarat Bar after midnight.) You'd be better off playing blackjack, where if you can keep track of the count you have a fighting chance of winning. You're better off rolling dice at the craps table, because if you stay away from the sucker bets the house edge is muchsmaller than with slot machines.

I've had every reason to suspect that William Bennett was a moral hypocrite since the very first I'd heard of him — it practically comes with the territory. What tickles me about the whole situation is just how dumb a hypocrite he is. I think it isn't fair that Steve Wynn, Kirk Kerkorian, and Donald Trump have been getting all of his money. Send him down to the poker room, so I have a shot at grabbing my share along with the other winners.