William Bennett has made a lot of money lecturing us on his version of morality. It is, to me, a very inconsistent, self-serving one, condemning almost every sin or near-sin committed by the poor or non-white, and overlooking or rationalizing almost every sin or near-sin that helps rich white guys get richer. He has also lost a lot of that money placing sucker bets in Las Vegas. Reports put it at eight million, a figure Bennett denies. Since he won't specify the real amount, I'm guessing it's not a lot below eight million.

Anyway, Bennett is starting his Image Rehabilitation Tour this weekend on Tim Russert, and a transcript is up at NBC's press site. It's full of wonderful typos and homonyms and misunderstandings by the transcriber. Note that in the part I'm quoting below, "dissent" is replaced with "descent," which is a much more appropriate word in the context. In fact, read all of this brief excerpt and then I have a point to make…

TIM RUSSERT: The United States Supreme Court ruled that a Texas law against sodomy should be struck down. That sex between consenting adults of the same sex should not be illegal. Canada now says that gay couples should be married. Is gay marriage in the United States of America inevitable?

BILL BENNETT: Good question. I don't know if it's inevitable. This was quite a decision from the Supreme Court. I agreed with Justice Thomas in descent, he said, "I would not have enforced this Texas law." And this Texas law the constable came and arrested these two guys. I wouldn't arrest people for that. But that's a different question from whether you validate and bless what it is homosexuals are doing, their sexual activity and their intimacy by calling it marriage or something like marriage. And I would be opposed to that. Is it — is it coming? I don't know.

"I would not have enforced this Texas law?" Huh? Isn't this the same William Bennett who, during the impeachment hearings, couldn't utter a sentence without the words "rule of law" in it? I thought the Republican/conservative position was that if a law is on the books, it should either be enforced by the authorities or removed via due process. That was, I thought, one of the great fibs of that whole nastiness…the notion that the law is the law and that all alleged violations must be vigorously pursued. We all know that every prosecutor in the country routinely dismisses a large percentage of the cases he or she could haul into court, either because the evidence seems insufficient or because resources are limited and it makes sense to press the cases that most impact the public good. Until the recent Supreme Court decision pretty much buried them, there were laws in some states against even heterosexual oral sex between married partners. No District Attorney enforced them because no District Attorney wanted the public to drag him into the street and beat him to death.

What Bennett wanted in this case was to have it both ways: He wanted the law to condemn sodomy and homosexual relations. But he also knew that the more middle-of-the-road Americans have seen gays prosecuted and persecuted, the more they've moved towards the position that such persecution is wrong. The only way to keep anti-gay laws on the books, Bennett knew for years, was to not enforce "the rule of law," or at least to not enforce it too visibly. He's lost that battle but he's giving up. As you'll see if you read the interview, he's still trying to convince people that homosexuality can be regarded as a choice; that gays can and will turn straight if we just lecture them enough, pass enough laws and force the Bible on them. I don't think very many people who oppose gay rights really believe that…but they don't know what else to say.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart remains the sharpest comedy show I've seen in years…and Mr. Stewart is a much better interviewer of folks in the news than just about anyone around. including all so-called professional newsfolks. The other day, he did a long conversation with Joseph Wilson, who is the diplomat who was dispatched to Africa to investigate reports that Iraq was purchasing yellowcake uranium with which it might nuke us. Wilson reported back that the story was not true but someone somewhere decided it was and kept it in some (not all) of the White House's briefs about why we needed to go to war. I don't know that anyone else has interviewed Mr. Wilson but I doubt they could have done a better job than Stewart did.

From what I can tell, this episode reruns twice during the day on Monday — once in the morning, once in the afternoon or early evening, both on Comedy Central. If and when the interview gets posted to the Comedy Central website, I'll alert you. But you might want to set the TiVo for it now…or better still, get a season pass to the smartest show on television.

Two articles over on Slate analyze and parse the new Congressional report on how our intelligence system failed to anticipate the 9/11 tragedies. The report runs 900 pages (some of them, redacted) and since you're not going to read it, you might want to read Fred Kaplan and Timothy Noah. The bottom line seems to be that there were a few screw-ups in the past and that appallingly little has been done to improve the situation.

This is the war in Iraq we're asking about. Here's the current dollar figure. And of course, there's also the little matter of Americans dying.

Paul Dini's comely Christmas chorine, Jingle Belle, goes to the Comic-Con. Right here.

The current issue of Locus, the science fiction news magazine, is a special issue guest-edited by master illustrator Charles Vess. The topic is graphic novels, and there's an interview with Alan Moore, articles by Neil Gaiman, Richard Pini, Harlan Ellison and others, plus other fun stuff. Here's a link to a page that will tell you the full contents and if you navigate around, you can probably find a way to order a copy. I've been around fandom long enough to recall a time when science-fiction fans acted as if they were way up on the food chain compared to us funnybook fanciers.

Back then, Locus would rather have ceased publication than write about the comic book field, and now they've gone and done this very nice issue about graphic novels. How far we've come.

A 74-year-old woman was wandering through a Detroit casino one day when she found a nickel in an unattended slot machine. She attempted to play it but casino employees rushed up and surrounded the woman. She was questioned and photographed. Then they confiscated both the nickel and a meal ticket she was holding, plus they ejected her from the casino and warned her that she'd be arrested if she ever returned. She sued the casino and a mediator suggested settling her claim for $17,000. The casino rejected this amount as exorbitant and allowed her suit to continue. Guess the end of this story.

Whatever happened to Monti Rock the Third?

A very talented gent named Craig McCracken created the animated series known as The Powerpuff Girls, which is seen constantly on Cartoon Network and everywhere else. Another very talented gent named Genndy Tartakovsky created the ones known as Dexter's Laboratory and Samurai Jack, which are also seen often on Cartoon Network. Why am I telling you this? Because — jerk that I am — I got them confused in my newly-released book, Wertham Was Right. As Kenneth Plume (of IGN FilmForce) just called to my attention, I wrote on page 56, "Powerpuff Girls is the vision of a terrific artist named Genndy Tartakovsky."

It doesn't invalidate the point I was trying to make, which was that the best cartoons are done by strong-willed, distinctive creators, but it's still incorrect. I plugged in the name of the wrong strong-willed, distinctive creator, and I can't blame it on the head of the C.I.A. Nor can I claim that the British are still standing by this statement. It's no one's fault but my own. Genndy did work on The Powerpuff Girls but it was created by Craig, and next time I'm out at Cartoon Network, I'll give them both copies of the book with my sincere apologies and invite them to kick me in some appropriate spot. (If you'd like to order a copy in spite of this, click here. I wouldn't blame you if you didn't.)

There's something very dislikable about Bill Maher but boy, he writes a funny, on-target commentary.

Now that it looks like there'll be a recall election (or maybe an UNelection) regarding California guv Gray Davis, folks are starting to realize how ambiguous and screwy the whole recall process is. Here's an article in The Sacramento Bee that outlines some of the possible scenarios, none of which sounds like healthy democracy to me.

Come to think of it, I should mention that The Sacramento Bee is all over this story. If you're interested in the recall and what it means, that's the website to visit.

As mentioned, Harlan Ellison is fighting a legal battle to curtail Internet piracy of copyrights. If you'd care to donate to the cause, this page will tell you more about it and take your loot.

The beard comes off tomorrow on Live With Regis and Kelly. The infamous Bruce Vilanch is going into the touring company of the musical of Hairspray, assuming the role originated on Broadway by Harvey Fierstein. That means playing in drag, so he's shaving the trademark facial hair and doing so on TV. Based on the many times I've seen him in local performances (cabarets, benefits, etc.) I have to assume Bruce will be terrific in the role. That is, assuming it doesn't work like Samson and his strength doesn't disappear after he is shorn.

I hope he wins some sort of award for it…but I can't imagine who they'll call in to write a witty acceptance speech for him.

Now on sale from DC Comics is a lovely paperbound collection containing around 192 pages (approximately half) of Jack Kirby's run as writer-artist of Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen. It's in color and despite the fact that most of Jack's drawings of Superman and Jimmy Olsen were inappropriately retouched, the power of his imagination is still quite evident. Jack was not wild about doing this particular book but he had the kind of work ethic that made it hard to say no to the folks issuing your paycheck. So he gave it his all and did the impossible: People actually cared for a time about a comic that fandom had routinely ignored and/or mocked. I'm not sure if they were good Jimmy Olsen comics but I think they were good comics, if you follow the distinction

They really showed that Kirby could be brilliant even when woefully misassigned. I did the foreword to this book, and Steve Rude turned a leftover Kirby cover sketch into a great new cover. But the reason to buy it is Kirby. Amazon doesn't have them in yet but they're out and if you pre-order here, they should send you one in a couple of days.

And here's a report on the panel we had at the convention all about Dr. Fredric Wertham and Seduction of the Innocent.