Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has been engaged in other matters today and hasn’t had enough time to blog about the myriad ideas cascading like rivulets through his creased brain. But he does want to take a moment to ask an open question to his good Poet Laureate who, in ever so timely a fashion, is piling on Bill Bennett.

Now we can all accept as read that Bennett has admitted to losing lots of money in casinos in Vegas and Atlantic City. Also, we can accept as read that he has been a constant advocate of traditional values in America and is the author of best-selling books on that subject. But your Maximum Leader doesn’t really see the hypocrisy in Bennetts actions. Bennett’s gambling losses did not take required financial resources from his family. No financial responsibility that Bennett had went unattended. He had large sums of money available, and wasted them.

While your Maximum Leader will agree that is not admirable, he doesn’t think it runs to the immoral. Bennett was engaging in a legal activity with disposable funds. And it is important to note that Bennett hasn’t, to your Maximum Leader’s knowledge, in any of his books or public pronouncements made any statement on the immorality of gambling.

Your Maximum Leader would completely agree with the Big Hominid if Bennett had been railing gainst gambling for years (or even once or twice) in public while secretly partaking of the forbidden fruit. If this were the case, then he would be no better than a Jim Bakker type of charlatan. But it is not the case. Or if Bennett’s gambling had caused his family to suffer financially as a result of his losses that would be a moral failing. But again this is not the case.

Your Maximum Leader feels that Bill Bennett is perfectly qualified, and remains qualified, to speak on behalf of moral issues in America. If your Maximum Leader remembers an interview with Bennett when all this was first news he admitted that he set a bad example in this area, especially for people who didn’t have the resources to lose. But is the Big Hominid contending that in order to be qualified to speak on moral issues one must be completely without fault?

Carry on.