The Senate's Commodus

If you've never seen "Gladiator", you might consider watching it this summer. If you have, maybe another viewing is in order. Yes, it's a terrific film with some great fight scenes and a ground-shaking soundtrack. But more than that, think about the premise: a ruler presiding over a corrupt and deteriorating empire uses sports (in this case, gladiatorial games) to assuage the commoners.

Sports, and all types of competitions, are the great distraction. They are fun, inspiring, and awaken a spirit within us that little else can. I should know, I have devoted my career to them.

But, to use a sports analogy, don't take your eye off the ball. Otherwise, you might miss the empire falling all around you.

Billions of dollars vanishing in Iraq, a disintigrating infrastructure, a home ownership crisis, failing health care, soaring prices...all are problems that need the urgent attention of our elected representatives; those chosen by the people to, ostensibly, provide the most basic rights and liberties to those who elected them.

Which is why it was more than a little alarming to read that Senator Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, chose this past week to declare a critical need for congressional hearings on whether or not the New England Patriots were punished enough for filming another team's signals.

That is disgusting.

Despite Mr. Specter's positions of authority and the respect he commands from both parties, he has been a silent (and not-so-silent) party to a great deal of the criminal acts and inexcusable decisions that have nearly bankrupted this country, and left so many of his constituents without work, savings, or hope. He has served in the United States Senate since 1981, and despite a moderate reputation, has, for the last eight years, provided a powerful rubber-stamp (and added credibility) to most of the failed policies of George W. Bush.

As former chair of the Senate judiciary committee, Mr. Specter spoke powerfully about the need to de-politicize Supreme Court appointments and to be very careful about any partisan justices. He then ushered John Roberts and Samuel Alito to confirmation.

As a former chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, he spoke with authority and gravity about the horrors of the illegal wiretapping conducted at the behest of the White House. He then quietly acted to provide all the culprits with immunity.

Now, in the face of a financial crisis that is crippling his own state, Mr. Specter is using his position as Pennsylvania's most important face in the federal government to stand up and yell that, under his watch, the NFL will (!) be free of a scandal that, in reality, was over in the eyes of the public nearly a year ago.

And if the public considers the "scandal" over, well, isn't that enough? We're talking about football, for crissakes. If the fans don't care, why are we even talking about it? And if the fans DO care, well, so what? At worst, they stop caring about the sport and stop going to games.
Why would that matter to a powerful U.S. Senator?

And, as a supposedly "free-market" Republican, wouldn't that be a problem that, I don't know, the league itself should deal with?

Arlen Specter is up for re-election in 2010, and will quite possibly lose. Congressional hearings on sports make for great TV---who could ever forget Rafael Palmeiro pointing and shouting that he had never used steroids---but they don't solve problems.

They put on a show.

And that's what Arlen Specter wants; his own legislative gladiatorial games to keep the people entertained, and keep himself in power.

After thirty years, that power can be hard to give up.

I'm guessing he hasn't seen the movie.