Why can't the Congress get SOMETHING right? - A sports review.

Roger Clemens spent yesterday on the Hill, talking to Congress, specifically the Senate, about his alleged steroid use. This discussion has been spawned by the Mitchell report, which reported the depth of steroid use within professional baseball, discoverable by an independent investigative team lead by former Senator George Mitchell. Former Senator Mitchell was commissioned by Bud Selig to perform the investigation. A reasonably comprehensive timeline of events prior to 2007 is available here:

http://thesteroidera.blogspot.com/2006/08/baseballs-steroid-era-timeline.html

So that's how your tax dollars were spent on our elected officials yesterday.

BUT WAIT! That's not the ONLY involvement Congress had yesterday in professional sports! Baseball just isn't enough!

Senator Arlen Specter R-PA met with NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell, on the so-called "Spygate" scandal.

A note on Spygate:
In the first game of the 2007 NFL season, the New England Patriots, under coach Bill Belichick, used a video recorder to record/capture opponents', New York Jets, under coach Eric Mangini, defensive signals. Coach Mangini reported this action to the NFL, as there had been a strongly-worded memo sent around the league stating that cheating would not be tolerated in the league during the season. The NFL looked into the allegations, and found that it was true that the Patriots had recorded the signals. Coach Belichick defended himself, saying that he thought the recordings were legal, that he had been involved in video recordings in the past, back to his first year with the Patriots in 2000. The NFL confiscated the tapes as evidence in the case, found them to corroborate the Jets' allegations and Coach Belichick's assertions, and took action against Belichick and the Patriots. Specifically,

- $500,000 fine for Coach Belichick - the maximum allowed under the rules of the NFL
- $250,000 fine for the Patriots
- A 1st-round draft choice (the Patriots DID make the playoffs)

The NFL considered the case closed, and destroyed the evidence tapes.


Now, Senator Specter believes that the tapes had been destroyed prematurely, and wanted to talk to Commissioner Goodell about the destruction of the tapes.

But why Senator Specter? I thought the NFL dealt with the issue?

Well, there IS that issue of the Patriots beating the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl 39. And Senator Specter, allegedly, is an Eagles fan. Surely a United States Senator wouldn't use his power and influence to influence history written 3 years ago, would he?

I just seems to me that our Congressmen and women, should put national and international issues and priorities first. I cannot speak for the voters of Pennsylvania, but I know I didn't elect MY public servants to spend time investigating sports' flaws, when issues like bin Laden, Democracy in Iraq, and violence in Darfur plague our international landscape, and immigration, public health care, and primary education are issues domestically. Evidently, the use of steroids in professional baseball, or the NFL's decision to destroy that are entirely congruent with testimony provided by both accuser and offender rank as important to our elected officials as the violent revolution in Chad.


Or maybe these current events are easy, free, and relevant vehicles for our elected officials to get sound bites aired by the media in an election year...