WASHINGTON – A general in the culture wars is caught doing something legal but embarrassing.

His supporters cringe. Gleeful opponents rejoice. Comedians go to town.

Ordinarily, morality czar William Bennett would be all over television, twisting the knife, scoffing at privacy arguments and wagging his finger at lesser mortals. Except this time, it was Bennett who was exposed.

Since Washington Monthly and Newsweek magazines detailed his $8 million in slot machine losses, Bennett has been very quiet amid a flood of cackling editorials on the “wagers of sin” and Jay Leno jokes about Gambino family values.

His only comment was that his gambling days were over – in a statement issued right after his wife, Elayne, gave an interview leaving the distinct impression she was stunned by the monumental scale of his losses.

Casino speech

He had one public appearance last week, speaking to Rotarians in Green Bay, Wis. It was at a hotel-casino.

A spokeswoman for Oneida Bingo & Casino said she wouldn’t be able to comment on whether Bennett availed himself of the slots.

Bennett did nothing illegal, and most people outside the religious right don’t consider gambling sinful.

But the flap may cripple Bennett in another sense: People are laughing at him now, and nothing punctures a sermon as effectively as a snicker.

Sex columnist Dan Savage is selling a $10 deck of playing cards featuring Bennett’s mug, suggesting they be distributed throughout Nevada so people would recognize Bennett if he stepped into a casino.

The cards have a drawing of a scowling Bennett under the words, “If you see me gambling, please alert my wife.”

Noting that Bennett used the address of his conservative foundation on casino forms, one Washington insider chuckled, “What if he couldn’t cover his debts? Do Moose and Rocco show up at the door of Empower America looking to break some legs?”

The glee was palpable – and widespread, judging from the torrent of letters to the editor in newspapers across the country – at the discovery that Bennett had a shameful secret, after his years of condemning the personal failings of single parents, working mothers, divorced people, gays and anyone else who doesn’t meet his standards.

Supporters point out that Bennett has never criticized gambling – which proves he’s not a hypocrite.

Detractors argue that lambasting every vice but your own is pretty hypocritical in itself.

‘A lot of play’

Gambling guru John Grochowski, author of “The Video Poker Answer Book,” calculated that if Bennett recycled his winnings from the machines, it would take him 800 to 1,600 hours of continuous play to squander $8 million.

“That’s a lot of play,” he said. “It takes a lot of money to lose this much money.”

Bennett could absorb the huge losses because, so far, the virtue business has been lucrative for him. He commands $50,000 per speech and probably makes 30 or 40 a year, an income of about $2 million on top of his book royalties and triple-figure salary from the conservative Heritage Foundation.

The Presbyterian Lay Committee, a conservative organization that featured Bennett at its national meeting, called the news “a tremendous shock.”

The committee said “his protestations that gambling have never been a moral issue with him” sound like the moral relativism Bennett despises and “evade responsibility for his actions.”

Several conservative groups, such as Concerned Women for America, urged him to get help.

Ken Connor, president of the Family Research Council, scolded the scold. “As the nation’s leading critic of America’s virtue deficit, Mr. Bennett, like it or not, bears a greater burden regarding his personal conduct than the average citizen.”

James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, said he was praying for his fellow morals crusader.

Calling gambling “a cancer on the soul of the nation,” he praised Bennett for vowing to quit “what appears to be a gambling addiction.”

Bennett has insisted he is not compulsive, that he has won as well as lost and is “pretty close to even” – a statement widely scoffed at by experts.

“In the short term, anybody can win,” Grochowski said. “But if you keep playing and keep playing, the house will take its percent.”

Fudging the truth about gambling winnings is considered a major warning sign by experts on compulsive gambling.

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