Newsweek Probes Bennett's Gambling Instead of Hillary's 9/11 Lies

NewsMax.com ^ | 5/03/03 | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

[kattracks]

While the establishment press won't touch bombshell allegations that New York Senator Hillary Clinton claims to have counseled 9/11 victim families in meetings that the families themselves say never took place, Newsweek has launched an investigation into the private gambling habits of private citizen Bill Bennett.

"More than 40 pages of internal casino documents provided to The Washington Monthly and Newsweek paint a picture of a gambler given the high-roller treatment, including limos and tens of thousands of dollars in complimentary hotel rooms and other amenities," the hit piece, posted to the magazine's Web site, claims.

"In one two-month period, the documents show him wiring more than $1.4 million to cover losses at one casino. In one 18-month stretch, Bennett visited a number of casinos for two or three days at a time."

The conservative moralist denies any wrongdoing, explaining that he gambles for relaxation, has "never bet the milk money" and claims to have broken even over the years.

Still, that didn't stop Clinton attack dog James Carville from zeroing in on the report during Friday night's "Crossfire" broadcast. After summarizing the Washington Monthly version of the story, Carville complained to "Crossfire" co-host Bob Novak, "I mean, come on, man. I mean you're telling me that's like the guy don't have a problem? Woo!"

Although media organs of both the left and the right are sure to pick up Newsweek's Bennett attack - especially after it was hyped on the Drudge Report late Friday - even most conservative news outlets have been mum about devastating new charges leveled by a highly credible source against the nation's most celebrated elected Democrat, Hillary Clinton.

Nearly two weeks ago, widely respected publisher-journalist Steven Brill revealed that while researching his new book "After: How America Confronted the September 12 Era," Mrs. Clinton sought him out to tout her own role ministering to 9/11 victim families in a craven attempt to trash fellow Senator Charles Schumer, and even had her office provide bogus records of the phantom meetings.

"None of it turned out to be true," Brill told WABC Radio's Steve Malzberg. "They gave me documents and phone calls and things like that which just plain never happened."

Brill said Clinton's office attempted to construct "an elaborate story, with an elaborate subtext of memos and phone calls - a long, long story."

Five days later the nation's top Democrat categorically denied the story - and went so far as to attack Brill, who defended the Clintons throughout impeachment, as someone who would lie to sell more books.

In a statement released to the Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, Hillary spokesman Phillipe Reines said, "Brill's accusations are completely false and an obvious last ditch effort to jump-start anemic book sales. It's hard to understand why Mr. Brill would choose to exploit such a horrible tragedy in this manner."

With the exception of O'Reilly and fellow Fox News Channel hosts "Hannity & Colmes," the broadcast media has ignored Brill's bombshell, despite the author's heavyweight reputation as the founder of "Court TV" and "American Lawyer" magazine.

Though NewsMax.com has covered Brill's quotes extensively since the story broke, neither Newsweek nor any other print outlet has deemed the revelations about America's most powerful elected Democrat to be newsworthy.

Within hours of the Newsweek report on Bennett, however, that story was getting heavy play on the ABC Radio network's top of the hour news broadcasts, and was being circulated to top opinion makers on "The Hotline."

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

Media Bias
Sen. Hillary Clinton

[jporcus]

Why doesn't someone go after whoever wrote the article on Bennet? I do not think it is a crime to gamble. And, depending on your wealth, gambling $1 million is not necessarily even bad if you can afford and that's what you want to do with your money.

[winner3000]

...the politics of personal destruction! Bennet isn't even running for office! He never said he was perfect, and I don't recall he ever said he was an authority on living a gamble-free life. So even if everything is true, what's their point again?

[kattracks]

Let's see, clinton has sex with an intern and commits perjury about it, and we're told by the Dims that this is none of our business, it's his "private" life, but Bennett gambles with his own $$$, hasn't committed any crime, and the Dims jump on it.

Desperate hypocrisy.

[kcvl]

WebEditors@newsweek.com

[Free_at_last_-2001]

the left is in real trouble and grasping at straws!

[OldFriend]

So gambling with your own money is a crime, but raping, committing perjury, exchanging national security secrets to the Chinese, having sex with an intern in the oval office......is private behaviour and no one's business.

This from Newsweak, who refused to print the story of the semen stained dress.......

[goldstategop]

Exactly. If this is "outing" a Republican, its the non-story of the year.

[RockBassCreek]

If betting over a million bucks doesn't touch "the milk money" then Bill Bennett is doing far better than I thought he was. I agree, however, that gambling is not a problem until it consumes a family's necessary finances. As long as it consumes only recreational finances, there is no problem.

The amount isn't significant because that would be relative to the means of the individual gambler. Bill Gates would have a whole lot more recreational cash than would I, the nickel slot machine king.

[The Wizard]

shows the quality of newsweek mag......0 on a scale of 1 to 10

[The Wizard]

crusty creates fraud for PR, that's news

[The Wizard]

And PMSNBC's Campbell Brown has joined forces with the dark side and uses her air time to attack GWB at every turn, using perjoritive words and phrases, like no one will catch on she's shilling for the democrats

[doosee]

If Bennett had done his gambling at Indian casinoes, then it would have been PC, and the media would shrug and say, at least he is helping to feed some starving native Americans.

[mewzilla]

Newsweek's motto ought to be All the news we see fit not to spike. Even before CNN's revelations, when it came to Newsweek I always wondered: What aren't you reporting...

[George W. Bush]

Newsweek isn't ever going to investigate the Hillary counseling scandal. Will Not Happen. And the rest of the media will be flogging this horse until it's dead and rotted.

Bennett's ubiquitous lecturing and moralizing makes him a juicy target, the kind that journalists love to bash on. I hope his gambling debts are paid up because he just deflated, as did his future book sales.

The people who most liked his books are the people least likely to tolerate gambling or to like state-sponsored gambling or casinos. The Bible Belt isn't going to like this one.

[Mears]

I subscribe to Newsweek because I just like getting a weekly newsmagazine,but when they started calling the death notices "Transition" I knew it was not the magazine for me.

I subscribed to Time for about 30 years but got fed up with it about 10 years ago and made the switch to Newsweek. Any suggestions regarding a weekly newsmagazine from anyone here would be greatly appreciated.

[drstevej]

Had he lost millions in the stock market would this be a story?

Explain the difference.

[gcruse]

Well, it does make for a good tagline.