On the off chance anyone may have thought there were any vestiges of limited government left in the ranks of today’s GOP:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is trying use a bill authorizing U.S. military operations, including in Iraq and Afghanistan, to prohibit people from using credit cards to settle Internet gambling debts. Frist, R‑Tenn., and his aides have been meeting with other lawmakers and officials in both the House and Senate to get the measure attached to a compromise Defense Department authorization bill, according to a Senate GOP leadership aide.

If this goes through, any senator who would dare suggest that the gambling ban be killed on the grounds that what people do with their own money on their own time in their own homes is none of Bill Frist’s business now risks accusations that he doesn’t support U.S. troops overseas.

What’s most aggravating about Congress’ full-throttle push to ban online game is that there’s really no call for it from the public, save for some of the fringe family-values conservatives. Some in Congress — Sen. John Kyl, and Reps. Goodlatte and Leach, for example — have been pushing this ban for years. But Frist’s sudden interest looks like little more than election year red meat.

Public opinion polls show most voters are overwhelmingly opposed to an online gambling prohibition. And to my knowledge, supporters of the bill can’t point to a single study showing that large numbers of Americans are gambling away their futures on these poker sites. Thus far, they’ve justified the bill with no more than a few anecdotes.

Of course, there’s also the naked hypocrisy of exempting state lotteries and the politically powerful horse racing industry from the ban. There actually are studies showing state lotteries to be a primary outlet for gambling addicts.