None of his business

Senator Arlen Specter is my new favorite stupid government official. Arlen Specter is someone who is no stranger to the spotlight. He has been a Republican senator from Pennsylvania since 1980, and since then has been known for being outspoken. He is one of the few Republican senators who has had the balls to speak out against President Bush, expressing criticism of Bush’s wiretapping policies and his classified intelligence leak. Just that alone would make me love Mr. Specter. But his latest bid to get attention highly disappointed me and reminded me of some of the major problems with Congress.\nIn case you are wondering what I’m referring to, it’s “spygate.” I am sure that most football fans in the state of Indiana are familiar with “spygate.” In case you are not, after the first game of the season, the New England Patriots were caught spying on and stealing signs from the New York Jets. Come to find out, the Patriots had several more spy tapes from the 2007 preseason and from the 2006 regular season. The commissioner warned the Patriots before the season not to spy on the teams, but when caught doing so anyway, the league handed down some of the most severe penalties in league history, including taking away a first-round draft pick. But something that raised many peoples’ eyebrows, including those of Arlen Specter, was the fact that during the investigation by the league, the commissioner destroyed all the tapes amassed by the Patriots. This has disturbed Sen. Specter so much that he has decided to call a congressional hearing and question Roger Goodell, the NFL commissioner, as to why he destroyed the tapes.\nCongress is no stranger to getting involved with matters of sports. Lately, Congress has taken an initiative to try to clean up the steroids issue in baseball. Now as much as I feel Congress has no place even in that issue, I feel it can be justified due to steroids being illegal, and that the use of them truly affects the youth of America. But someone please explain to me how the Patriots spying on other teams affects America? Specter said, “I am very concerned about the underlying facts on the taping, the reasons for the judgment on the limited penalties and, most of all, on the inexplicable destruction of the tapes.” He later went on to explain that it could affect the NFL antitrust exemptions. Like myself, I am sure many will hear about this story and will ask why a U.S. senator should care. Doesn’t the U.S. Senate have bigger fish to fry?\nThis situation has reminded me that congressmen have and will always be a bunch of attention-hungry, self-glorifying blowhorns. Mr. Specter, I’ll bet, is doing this for no other reason but to be known as the guy that cleaned up football. Imagine that legacy.