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"The Moral Compass: A Companion to 'The Book of Virtues' " Edited by William J. Bennett Simon & Schuster. $30.
In this age of sequels, another compilation of stories by American's self-appointed Virtues Czar is simply good economic sense.
William Bennett made about $5 million from his first collection of morally instructive tales, "The Book of Virtues,"
which is a virtuous thing for a man who values money-making so highly that he turned down the chairmanship of the Republican Party because ethics rules barred him from making much outside income.
Which, in his case, is a lot. Bennett's usual speaking fee is $40,000.
So, even if "The Moral Compass" doesn't approach "Virtues" in income, released in time for the holiday buying season, it's doing fine.
Bennett was Drug Czar before taking the Virtues post, meaning he headed the Bush administration's war on illegal drugs. It was a job that gave the one-time academic wide latitude to decry a nation gripped by various addictions while continuing to smoke cigarettes. Other federal positions included a stint as education secretary and chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
After the nation rejected Bush in favor of a pot-smoking, skirt-chasing draft-dodger in 1992, Bennett took advantage of this spiritual collapse to gather up a pile of...