I know this comes way after the fact, but I actually just saw this clip on “The Daily Show”, so I had to say something: What the hell is wrong with Bill Bennett?

For a guy who comes across as quite smug and really high on himself, he has some audacity calling the kettle black.

As you saw on The Daily Show clip, Bill Bennett, CNN analyst and former Secretary of Education, is completely outraged by the notion that Wanda Sykes would utter a joke that involves Rush Limbaugh’s kidney failing.

Oh, the outrage!

You mean, a comedian told a joke that suggested someone might die for pure entertainment value? That never happens, except in movies, plays, songs, literature, and this little industry that pays Bennett: television!

But no, Bennett can’t stand the thought of Sykes telling a joke about Limbaugh’s kidney failing, and it’s because of jokes like those, that Bennett chooses not to attend this annual “political” roast, if you will.

Well so what?

Who the hell is a Bill Bennett? I don’t care if he attends the dinner. Why did he feel the need to tell me that he doesn’t attend? I didn’t even know he got the invite. Just opine on the dinner itself and move on, Bill.

You have to be quite a jerk to get up in the middle of a dinner and walk out because you heard a joke you did not like? I mean, who does that?

It is not as if he didn’t know that offensive jokes would be used at the dinner, it happens every year, a fact he claims to know. So why did he have to leave the dinner two times? If he knew that this event had jokes he, apparently, wholeheartedly objected to, why go back again? I can only assume that Bill Bennett isn’t all that sensible. It is either that, or he is lying. Would you go back to a dinner, where at the same dinner the year before, you had to get up and leave? That just doesn’t make any sense.

And as if his outright criticism of Sykes joke and this event wasn’t enough, the idea that this guy thinks that the Sykes’ jokes cross the line, but water boarding is okay, has to be some of the most hypocritical bullshit I have ever witnessed. Seriously, how can he be so enraged by Sykes jokingly going after Rush Limbaugh, but he is okay with the U.S. essentially breaking the laws of the Geneva Convention and torturing prisoners of war? You show me Bill Bennett, and I’ll show you a guy who has his priorities messed up.

At the end of the day, Bennett is just yet another old-fashioned ideologue who can’t see the forest through the trees. As John Stewart pointed out, the man doesn’t even have the heart to refer to his wife outside of her full name. It’s a tragedy that such a traditional, immovable, personality like his is on a great channel like CNN. But like with any good joke, sometimes you have take the brunt of the impact to enjoy the rest of the ride.

In the spirit of being fair, here is a much more reasonable and levelheaded version of Bill Bennett…despite the fact that I disagree with him on this notion as well.

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