The American Spectator

Reader Mail

More Fumbles

5.27.08 @ 12:01AM

SENATOR SPECTACLE
Re: Ryan Young's Rotten Replay:

Thank you for Ryan Young's fine article on Senator Arlen Specter's wrong-headed attempt to inject himself and the Senate Judiciary Committee into the SpyGate scandal. Speaking of contact sports, Mr. Young's article serves to confirm that one of the most dangerous places to find oneself in Washington, D.C. is between Senator Specter and a television camera.
-- Paul Curley
Hong Kong

I haven't followed the issue closely, nevertheless, I'm a tad skeptical of Steelers' chairman Dan Rooney's comments to the effect that he considers the tapes a non-issue and that they didn't affect the outcome of certain games. Perhaps so, and he surely knows more about football than me.

However, I wonder if there isn't something else at work here. Specifically, a sports league's worth is underwritten by the assumption that the games are played fairly. (This applies to actual sports, not the likes of wrastlin', which is theater.) If fans suspect that the games are in any way tainted it degrades the whole assumed integrity of the league. That has the potential to cause them to lose interest thereby eroding all owners' earnings. So, it is in all the owners' interests to downplay any such potential improprieties.

Taking inspiration from Jay D. Homnick, the situation reminds me of a joke. A man got a job with a circus that required him to dress up as a gorilla and swing from a trapeze above a lion cage. One day the trapeze broke, dropping him into the lion's cage. So he yelled for help, whereupon the lion charged him, knocked him down on the ground, and, in a quiet voice, told him to shut up before he got them both fired. It seems to me that Mr. Rooney's comments could be construed to be in this vein.

None of this, of course, belongs in the Senate. Although, if it keeps them preoccupied, it might be a good thing.
-- Richmond Trotter

I would guess if the prancing and preening senators are not doing their own work, they have plenty of time to make mischief in places their very large noses do not belong.

Senator Specter, how about getting some conservative judges approved as you promised when every Republican east of the Mississippi who worked to get you re-elected in a year you nearly went down.

If the Senate wishes to know why they are held in such low esteem, they have only to look at the recent hearings with the oil executives and garbage hearings like the Major League Baseball -- and now this nonsense. Let Bud Selig and Roger Goodell do their jobs, and Senator Specter, you do yours. In other words, sit down and shut up!
-- Judy Beumler
Kentucky

The idiotic Senate may be "shocked!" YES! SHOCKED! To learn that we also have real spies sneaking about the country infiltrating classified American government installations, weapons developers, bugging our diplomatic corps here and overseas, applying to and taking courses at our public university schools of science & engineering, amongst others but, the Senate is mute on all that.

But you mess with NFL football and you're gonna get in BIG trouble 'cause you've made Arlen Specter MAD!

Is a lethal terrorist attack against a major sports team going to be what it takes to make the Senate notice that there's a real war goin' on out there in the real world where we all live?
-- P. Aaron Jones
Michigan

Mr. Young tries to dismiss the efforts of Arlen Specter in the baseball investigation of steroids, but it was not until after Sen. Specter threatened to get involved, and the House humiliated MLB in their initial hearings, that MLB launched their own investigation into the steroids issue. It took Congressional intervention, and the threat of further intervention to rouse baseball from its "see no evil" posture about the prevalence of steroids in the game. I never thought that this was something that Congress should have been involved in, but even I can see the good that Congressional intervention had here.

As for SpyGate, the NFL has mishandled this from the jump by trying to pooh-pooh it at first, then by destroying the evidence, and pretending that fining the team was a serious punishment. And if the NFL really wanted to make a statement it would have pulled BOTH of the Patriots first round picks, instead of letting them hang onto a top ten pick they got in a trade. Personally I don't see the need for a Senate investigation, but I can't say that someone independent of the NFL doesn't need to take a close look at the investigation launched by Roger Goodell. The NFL has behaved in a way that screams cover-up, and it is especially plausible as one the major marketing themes of the NFL has been pushing the Patriots dynasty; what happens if the NFL has to openly admit that their golden boys achieved their status through blatant rule breaking? That certainly sounds like a reason for the NFL to try to cover their tracks to me.

And it's not just people at NFL message boards who have serious misgivings about this either. Because of the notoriety of the SpyGate scandal, we now have former Patriots player Ross Tucker exposing the fact that the Patriots broke the rules covering the players on injured reserve by allowing them to practice. It is stuff like this that should trouble the NFL, but they seem content to look the other way as their rules are flouted by one of their glamour teams.

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Taxes, Education, Trade, Television, Economics, Business, Sports, Islam, Hollywood, Law, Military, Iraq, Iran, NATO, Nuclear Weapons, Oil