Who would have thought that you could make a career out of being a self-righteous, hypocritical, professional blowhard?
But it appears that you can. I bring you as example one William Bennett. This is a man who is essentially a professional moralist; a man who wrote a book called "The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories". I wonder if if included the chain smoking talking head as an example of self discipline? Or the story of the compulsive gambler who presumed to tell others how to live as an example of the virtue of knowing oneself? Or the political operative and the dominatrix as an example of upholding family values and the sanctity of marriage.
Yea, I know this is all old news but Bennett has crawled out from under his rock again and that the people need to be warned that he is foraging again. Fortunately, Dana Priest was there to point this out (and thanks to Atrios for pointing this episode out and providing a link). While I have to admit I really enjoyed Ms. Priest poking Bill in the eye the real issue is that it happened. Why is this asshat on TV? What credibility does he have. To the best of my knowledge real moral philosophers, oh, let's say Buddha or Jesus, weren't chain smoking, compulsive gamblers who frequented dominatrixes. I could be wrong on some of that but I don't think so. And yes, I aware that neither Buddha nor Jesus is likely to make the Sunday morning talk shows as a moralist in residence. But hell, there has to be someone else. They really need to do better than a verbally flatulent hypocrit. I think that if they have on Bill Bennett in the future he would be much better suited to doing something other than presuming to tell people how to live their lives. Maybe he should become a professional juggler or do card tricks or something. I mean I really don't want to watch him getting tied up and beaten by Mistress Whatever, but I suppose that would be more amusing than listening to him pass judgement on people.
All of this is in addition to the more basic issue of why the TV folks feel that they should put people on to tell us how to live our lives. We need advice from any of them on that, much less from a complete hypocrit. Really, what kind of brain says, "Oh, we need someone with gravitas and high moral standing to discuss the role of the press in society, lets get Bill Bennett." If I want to know whether to hit on 16 I might ask Bill for advice. Other than that, he can keep it too himself.
posted by Sentenza at 1:38 PM
2 Comments:
The pundit class of characters are over all a waste of bandwidth as far as I can tell. They seem to be quasipolitcal, connected up, hacks who don't mind being the tinhorns for the gop noise machine.
I have noticed that the Prince of Virtue, Bill Bennet, has returned to the public spotlight. After his as previous venture as self-appointed moralist and the compiler of virtuous tales, he became an object of ridicule and public disgrace for his late night slot machine compulsion. Completely unacceptable to the conservative congregation to whom he preached.
How did he pull off this public renaissance? He used a post-modern, post-Oprah public relations technique. He vanished from the public eye of his own accord until he felt it safe to come out again.
This self-ostracism technique is the new way disgraced public people work their way back into the public eye. It is based on the premise that the press imposes upon itself an indeterminate time limit on how long they will mention the transgression.
In other words, after a certain amount of time the press will think it’s unfair to mention that Bennett, the virtuous, blew eight million dollars of gambling losses after long, lonely nights at the slots.
Judith Miller, late of the New York Times, is using the technique now. She was sanctified as a First Amendment Joan of Arc one day, only to be exposed as a gullible shill for the Bush Administration line on Iraqi WMD the next.
Now that Bill Bennett is back, I would suggest that he can solidify his return to the public eye with a new literary undertaking. The “Book of Vices” would be a compilation of stories demonstrating how various vices can tarnish one’s image. Chapter one of his next book should concern the vice of Sanctimony, which led to his downfall before this latest attempt at public resurrection.
One caution to Judith Miller. Don’t come back too soon. There are still some reporters, like Dana Priest, who are exceptions to the rule. On a “Meet the Press” show recently, Mr. Bennett was arguing that the New York Times was wrong to publish certain stories about secret spying programs on Americans by the Bush Administration .
Ms. Priest defied the press convention that time out of the spotlight heals all wounds. Instead, as W.C. Fields said, she made sure that time wounds all heels. She pointedly remarked in rebuttal to Bennett that some people think casino gambling is wrong too. At which point, Mr. Bennett became very quiet. He realized, maybe for the first time, that silence was also a virtue.
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