For the week of June 4 - 10, 2003

Looking for virtue in unlikely places

Commentary by Betty Bell

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We’ll let Mr. Bennett shed his resolution if he promises to come to Idaho and gamble a few million bucks on our lottery.

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Weeks ago, after we learned of his loss of an astonishing $8 million in Las Vegas slot machines, William J. Bennett, the head of the Department of Virtue, had an epiphany. "I have done too much gambling," he said, "and this is not an example I wish to set. Therefore, my gambling days are over,"

Good for WJB. I believe that’s he’s serious, but I can’t help wondering—would he quit gambling if we hadn’t found out about it? And I wonder if $8 million is the whole story or if there are stunning surprises yet to come. My, such wretched thoughts for a Christian to harbor. Worse, when I should be saying prayers for his success, instead I giggle.

Feeding $8 million into flashing, whirring slot machines doesn’t prove addiction. It could indicate that gambling is a compelling hobby, or perhaps a too serious pastime, or maybe even a beloved avocation. But we all know that hobbies and pastimes and avocations are the very traits so hard to change.

My keen interest in WJB’s business, which hasn’t diminished, might seem a bit unsavory. I don’t expect kudos, but cut me a little slack here—there’s a plus side in the marked improvement of my attention span. For instance, I keep getting images of his gigantic right arm. If you lost just $1 million pulling the lever on a slot machine, wouldn’t your right arm get so big it’d make Lleyton Hewitt’s meal-ticket arm look scrawnier than Orphan Annie’s? And no, I didn’t assume that WJB is right handed--it’s a given. WJB couldn’t tolerate being "left" about anything.

As a young and serious Catholic girl, I’d always try to give up candy for Lent, but I can’t brag about my record. And I’ve tallied years and years of New Year’s resolutions made and readily broken, so it’s my own sorry record that makes me curious about WJB’s big-time resolution.

I do wish him better luck than I’ve had, and I wholly agree with him that gambling’s not a sin. But I’m not sure that breaking resolutions doesn’t get into a fuzzy gray area. In all those Saturday afternoons of going to Confession and owning up to resolution failures, Father never once said forget it—he gave me a penance of 10 Our Fathers and 10 Hail Marys every time.

Maybe if you’re in the business of marketing virtue you get a strength that those of us who just read about it can’t muster. Still, I bet it’s hard, hard, hard. I wonder if Ms. WJB’s has such unflagging faith in Mr. WJB that she doesn’t wish even for a minute that she could slip one of those bracelets around his ankle that’d tattletale the instant his foot crossed the threshold of a slot machine establishment.

I’ve been so caught up in this epic story of fall from grace that I went to the library specifically to look at WJB’s "The Book of Virtues," a book that never tempted me before. I found that Mr. Bennett is a master at getting great mileage out of a book. First, there’s an adult version, and then there’s the "little-biddy" word version (as our president would say) for children. And "The Book of Virtues" isn’t actually written, as in creative writing 101—it’s a collection of verses and stories and poems and essays from the Bible and through the Grimm Brothers times up to and including contemporary virtuous examples about and by past presidents. President Clinton didn’t make it—instead he got his own book, "The Death of Outrage." But it probably won’t come out in a little-biddy word version.

In fifth grade, Sister Mary Fidelis, our scary Baltimore Catechism teacher, permanently etched our malleable minds with the admonition that God sees virtue in every man. It’s too bad WJB didn’t serve a year under Sister Mary Fidelis--he’d have felt compelled to come up with at least one good thing to say about William Jefferson Clinton.

In the days before Internet and cell phones, my entrepreneurial husband, Ned, and his best friend and partner, Jack--rest their souls--operated a football parlay gambling syndicate. They worked as hard as any math specialists to get the odds figured by Thursdays, and then they hustled all over town and put their cards everyplace except in church. It’s not an exaggeration to say that after a few seasons of playing football parlay cards, the Wood River Valley had a passel of seriously dedicated gamblers, and what saved us was that Ned and Jack heard a rumor that two FBI agents had checked into the Sun Valley Lodge solely to find evidence of illegal pursuits. Well, the syndicate dissolved faster than sugar in hot water, and Ned and Jack and all the rest of us quit gambling cold-turkey with nary a relapse.

The only objectionable thing I see about WJB’s gambling is the glaringly uncaring way he lost that 8 million bucks. In Las Vegas casinos, for Heaven’s sake! And here we are in poor little old Idaho with millions of dollars of budget shortfall. But the thing is, we also have a lottery--the poor man’s tax, even though that’s not the way it’s promoted. Lottery gambling is virtuous, we’re pressed to believe, since the state gets some of the money it rakes in.

So there’s a win-win solution here. We’ll let Mr. Bennett shed his resolution if he promises to come to Idaho and gamble a few million bucks on our lottery. The odds that he’ll win are slim here, too, and for sure it won’t be as much fun--no free rooms, dinners and lemonade—but at least his self-esteem can soar right back up to its pre-revelation level. For "Yea, verily," it is written, "Virtuous is the rich man who gives generously to the poor man’s tax.

We’ll welcome you to Idaho, Mr. Bennett.

 

The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.