Politics? I got Your Politics
Here’s An Issue I Have With the Adminstration
OK, so plenty of you think that I’m a bad American for not watching State of the Union addresses. What can I say, I love movies, but I loathe the Academy Awards. Sue me. You also said that I’ve been too quite on matters political. Careful what you wish for y’all.
You want politics, here we go. I have been mostly silent about the Obama Administration and its various efforts towards “hope and change” but I am not going to remain silent on this:
Before I go too far, let me note that members of Congress from both parties are pushing for this so any and all venom spewed is not reserved for the President, his Administration or his party.
What the fuck is the Administration doing looking into a college football bowl selection process? Like most college football fans I loathe the BCS and want a playoff system. That doesn’t mean that I think our Government should be spending time investigating college football and who plays in what freaking bowl game. According to the story Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich says that the Justice Department is looking into a request from Senator Orrin Hatch to investigate possible anti-trust violations in the BCS.
Hatch should be focusing his efforts on coming up with a alternative to the health care package he has been voting against, figuring out a way to keep our borders secure or some sort of comprehensive energy plan rather than poking his nose into sports. Hell, if the Senator really wanted to do something perhaps he should be writing letters to the Justice Department urging them to do something about identity theft. That’s something they SHOULD be working on.
And with all due respect to the President and his promise to “throw his weight around a little” to push for a playoff system in college football, this is NOT the way to do it. Word should come down from the top that the Justice Department does not need to be wasting time and resources on sports. If people in the AG’s office have time to be looking into college football then perhaps those people should join the ten plus percent of Americans who are out of work. Shouldn’t they be worried about how to conduct the terror trails? Or maybe show as much concern for the seven thousand Mexican citizens murdered last year in the drug wars just south of our border. Or how about working on that pesky identity theft problem? Are these issues not important to the President, his AG’s and Senators like Hatch?
Of course they are important, but there are two things making the BCS investigation more of a front burner issue. First, the things I mentioned are hard. Figuring out the right way to bring terror suspects to the States for a fair, safe trial is HARD. Fighting (or better yet changing our policies in) the drug war is HARD. Doing something, anything about ID theft is apparently hard enough to be declared impossible. Making a lot of noise about the NCAA, the BCS or steroids in baseball (Remember that sham of an investigation? Don’t you wish we had the money they spent on that back?) is easy. There are no lives at stake, no big risks to take and the upside leads right into the second factor. Things like this are sexy. They grab media headlines. They put Senator Hatch in a good light with all those Utah football fans who really believe that their team is as good as Alabama, Florida, Texas or any number of programs who would wipe the floor with them 98 times out of 100. It gives ESPN an excuse to talk about the President because he’s a hip sports fan who hates the BCS. That makes him relatable to some people. Why? Because he hates what all sports fans hate? I assume he hates boy bands too, but is he going to call for a Government ban on them? This doesn’t make him look in tune with sports fans to me. It makes him look like he’s pandering for something easy while a hundred real issues get just a little less attention.
Back during the steroid investigations (I believe Senator McCain was part of that mess) I railed against the foolish (and camera craving) Republicans and Democrats for sticking their noses where they didn’t belong. They wanted to force mandatory drug testing of athletes? Why? Because steroids are illegal? What about mandatory drug testing on movie sets? For teachers? Better yet, how about mandatory drug and alcohol testing for members of Congress and their staffs? Personally I was less concerned about Sammy Sosa hitting an extra 10 home runs on juice than I was about my representatives making life and death decisions while impaired.
We should apply the same logic here. The BCS is ‘unfair’ to Utah, Boise State and St.Mary’s School for the Blind because they can’t get a ‘fair’ shot at the National Championship? Sorry folks, some things in life just ain’t fair. Should Congress investigate the elitist way the Oscars, Grammys or Emmys are chosen? Should they be looking into the fact that someone who doesn’t have a few million in the bank has virtually no shot at becoming a US Senator? Senator Hatch, would you be willing to level the playing field so that someone of modest means can take your seat?
What Ronald Weich and others in the AG’s office should be instructed to do is to politely decline Senator Hatch’s request. Not because we don’t care about college football, but because the Government has much, much bigger fish to fry (Two wars, 10% unemployment, out of control spending, health care reform, immigration reform, tort reform, energy reform, identity theft and the list goes on and on.) and even more importantly, the Federal Government does not need to be reaching into every aspect of our lives.
