The Death of Shame

Bill Bennett, last seen abjectly apologizing for a gambling habit he initially insisted was nobody's business but his own, will be featured at an October conference sponsored by the prohibitionist propaganda mill known as the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. Bennett and Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) are scheduled to debate drug policy with former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson and former Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke, now dean of the Howard University Law School.

If Bennett had stuck to his original position on gambling–that, like drinking, it's an innocent pleasure unless "you can't handle it"–he might have some explaining to do: Why isn't the same thing true of pot smoking, for example? But as a confessed slots junkie, he can now extrapolate from his own lack of self-control to the population at large, which should only strengthen his prohibitionist convictions.