question:  Which word least describes Tom Grey?
context: Is <A NAME= Gambling's would-be federal regulators--the National Gambling Impact Study Commission--went to Las Vegas this week to hold hearings. She begins referring to the "gaming industry." It is tough slogging, but for the first time I sense that this commission--though divided, underfunded, timid, and without any power beyond exhortation--isn't entirely useless. This effort has largely succeeded, because Vegas is still the dominant image of American gambling, if not the dominant reality. Judging by today's hearings and by conversations with most of the commissioners, the tobacco model is winning. The testimony clearly impresses the commissioners and seems especially to impress the three nonaligned commissioners who will be the swing votes on the June 1999 report. It is starting to become clear what that report will say. Instead it will opt for small, targeted policies, concentrating on compulsive gambling. Similarly, the commission will try to reduce gamblers' access to cash by limiting the size of ATM advances and prodding casinos to remove the machines from their floors. It will call for heavier regulation of Indian gambling and will probably try to ban or severely regulate Internet gambling, perhaps by forbidding gambling companies from running online casinos. In short, it will treat gambling as a tobaccolike vice. If the comments of the pro-industry commissioners can be believed, the industry will happily endorse such a report. Because it provides superb cover for them. It medicalizes the problem of compulsive gambling, blaming it on psychological abnormality rather than industry machination. Likewise, cracking down on compulsives is also politically cost-effective. In exchange for losing a few compulsive gamblers, the casinos will (falsely) appear more concerned with the health of their customers than with profits. The cigarette agenda will also distract the commission and the public from the true reasons for worry. What the commission ought to be investigating is whether the gambling industry has become so powerful that it's politically untouchable. The antis can call gambling "tobacco." They can call it "vice."
output:  jaded
options:  straightforward  jaded  passionate  persistent