Online Gambling = DoD Concern?

Normally, one would never think that the Department of Defense would have anything to do with online gambling. But if Senator Bill Frist (R-TN), the Senate Majority Leader, gets his way, legislation that will restrict Internet gambling in the U.S. will be directly linked to DoD spending.

How? Frist, according to reports, is attempting to attach anti-gambling legislation to the FY 2007 defense appropriations bill. The sad thing is, he is allowed to do this if nobody stops it. He wants to force the legislation through for two reasons. For one, Congress will be out of session soon, so there is not much time left for him to get this through. Since he very well might run for President in 2008, he would love to show all the conservative voters, particularly those in traditionally “red” states, that he hurt the online gaming industry. Cards and dice are works of the devil, after all. Two, those Senators who approve the appropriations bill must, in the end, approve everything in it. Voting against the bill would signal to their constituents that they are soft on defense or even (gasp) “don’t support our troops.”

Senator Frist has shown in the past that he is largely motivated by politics, not by facts, common sense, or reason. Keep in mind that this man is a doctor. He earned his M.D. from Harvard in 1978 and practiced for twenty years. He performed over 150 heart and lung transplants. But despite all that, he had the gall to waffle in an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC's This Week back in 2004 when it came to an extraordinarily basic medical question. The questioning revolved around reports that said some federally-funded sex education programs were spreading misinformation.

George Stephanopolous: Now you're a doctor. Do you believe that tears and sweat can transmit HIV?
Senator Frist: I don't know. I can tell you --
Stephanopolous: You don’t know?
Frist: I can tell you things like, like --
Stephanopolous: Wait. Let me stop you there. You don't know that, you believe that tears and sweat might be able to transmit AIDS?
Frist: Yeah, no, I can tell you that HIV is not very transmissible as an element, like compared to smallpox, compared to the flu, it's not.
(snip)
Stephanopolous: ...Let me just clear this up though, do you or do you not believe that tears and sweat can transmit HIV?
Frist: It would be very hard...for tears and sweat to -- I mean, you can get virus in tears and sweat. But in terms of the degree of infecting somebody, it would be very hard.

This coming from a man whose website states:

“Dr. Frist is particularly passionate about confronting the global AIDS pandemic. He frequently takes medical mission trips to Africa to perform surgery and care for those in need. As Senate Majority Leader, he continues to raise awareness about the HIV/AIDS crisis throughout the world.”

So, if he is willing to avoid the well-known facts about something for which he is supposedly “passionate” in order to further his own political agenda, I guess it comes as no surprise that he is trying to sneak anti-gambling legislation in a defense spending bill.

Originally published September 18, 2006