Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (543)	5/5/2003 8:20:42 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793917

Why Casinos Ratted Out Bennett--They think, mistakenly, that he's a scourge against gamblers. From Slate: >>>Green would not, of course, reveal any names, but he did acknowledge that casino employees in Atlantic City and/or Las Vegas provided information. "There were multiple sources," he said, "at multiple casinos." Green and Alter suggest that Bennett's gambling losses exceed $8 million. You'd think casinos would consider a sap like that an ideal customer. Even if they were indifferent, you'd think casino employees would decline to dish about the wins and losses of any customer, especially a famous one. Such disclosure is strictly against house rules that casino owners are rumored to enforce through extralegal violent means. Apparently, though, Bennett is heartily disliked at these palaces of sin, and that tipped the balance. "What rankled a lot of people in Atlantic City and Las Vegas was that Bennett's organization, Empower America, opposes the expansion of casino gambling," Green says. Bennett's enemies in the casino were angered by "what they considered to be the hypocrisy between the public stance of his organization and his private gambling." If they think that, they have it wrong. Four "bullet" paragraphs in Empower America's Index of Leading Cultural Indicators (consisting of statistical information rather than argument) cannot reasonably be said to weigh heavily in the national debate. More plausibly, the Monthly, Newsweek, and Slate's own Michael Kinsley offer the opposite rationale for exposing Bennett. They argue that Bennett, far from being a scourge of gambling, personally exempts gamblers from his lengthy list of moral lepers, and that he does so because he is one. The casino leakers impute far more importance to one despised nuance in Empower America's agenda than it warrants. At the same time, they impute far less to importance to Bennett's TV sermonizing?where gambling doesn't figure?than that warrants. Chatterbox won't attempt to discover the casino leakers' identities, as he has often tried to do with Deep Throat, because doing so might shorten their lives. He wishes them good health and greater political acuity in the future<<<<<http://slate.msn.com/id/2082574/