Word: bennette
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...morning crowd at the Valleyfair! amusement park in Minnesota can't quite place him--the big guy over there by the roller coaster. Maybe he's that football coach, Bill something. Bill Parcells? They aren't sure, and being Midwesterners, several greet him with a cautious "Hiya, coach." Bill Bennett just grins, nods and lets his son Joseph, 7, tow him away through the shimmering heat toward the bumper cars...
...moment that Bennett, 53, experiences with some regularity and recalls with self-deprecating relish. In other contexts--in an airport, say, clad in one of his Rochester Big & Tall business suits--Bennett is easily recognized by people who gush praise for his books and urge him to run for President. But when he wears sneakers and shorts in a place like Valleyfair!, which he visited before delivering a lecture in nearby Minneapolis, he is more likely to hear "Hiya, coach." And, in fact, it has become a fitting job description...
...moralism crosses party lines. Democracy's Discontent, the recent pro-virtue book by liberal scholar Michael Sandel, got a column-long tribute from conservative George Will. The "communitarians," such as Amitai Etzioni, draw praise from the left (Clinton and Al Gore) and the right (Jack Kemp and Bennett). And Bennett's attack on tabloid TV came at the suggestion of a Democrat, Senator Joseph Lieberman...
...what exactly are they saying? Are they ready to adopt the thunderous moralizing of Bennett? Paint good and bad in bold relief? Is Etzioni prepared to stigmatize divorce? He says yes, but when you press him to define stigma, its meaning grows elusive. Is he saying you should give the cold shoulder to a neighbor who has left his or her family for a new and improved spouse? Should you not invite such people to parties? Well, he's not sure he'd go that far until we've exhausted other avenues. (Let's give those supervows a few more...
...vastly better at taking this sort of bitter medicine. Newt Gingrich, as is well known, left his first wife and their two daughters. Bob Dole left his first wife and their daughter. And both men, in classic male fashion, then married younger women. Does Republican moralist-in-chief Bennett think Dole and Gingrich, in this regard, are good? Does he think they're bad? He has never said. But if a take-no-prisoners crusade to restore the American family doesn't involve heaping shame on this sort of behavior, then just what do conservatives plan to heap shame...