{"id":6035,"date":"2005-12-08T15:03:25","date_gmt":"2005-12-08T20:03:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6035"},"modified":"2005-12-08T15:03:25","modified_gmt":"2005-12-08T20:03:25","slug":"its-just-a-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/its-just-a-game\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s just a game"},"content":{"rendered":"

I noted<\/a> last week that Congress’ interest in sports seemed to be moving in an unhealthy direction. The House Government Reform Committee won’t hold hearings on issues pertaining to government reform, but it will devote time and attention to steroids and baseball. The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee won’t hold hearings on a White House criminal investigation, but he will consider a hearing to explore whether the Philadelphia Eagles and the NFL violated anti-trust laws with Terrell Owens’ suspension.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, lawmakers shifted attention to the college level<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Members of Congress played amateur sports commissioners again yesterday as the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection held a hearing on the controversial Bowl Championship Series (BCS), which determines — at least in theory — college football’s national champion.<\/p>\n

But first it was left to members to argue whether they should be hearing the issue at all. “I believe my constituents are wondering why this Congress and their congresswoman are talking about football” when there are so many other pressing concerns, said ranking member Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.).<\/p>\n

But Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), chairman of the full committee, said, “Man doesn’t live by policy alone. Sports is an important part of American society.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, I don’t follow sports as closely as I used to, but I can appreciate the fact that the BCS is a ridiculous system. While every other collegiate team sport relies on a straightforward playoff system to determine an annual title holder, including smaller universities playing in Divisions II and III, Division IA college football teams rely on what’s called the Bowl Championship Series — a complex formula involving regional conferences, the opinions of coaches and journalists, corporate-backed bowl games, and a series of byzantine computer formulas. It’s one of the more widely hated systems in American sports.<\/p>\n

Is it really worthy of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s time? Not really. But the problem isn’t necessarily that Barton’s BCS hearing is particularly offensive or wasteful, but rather, it’s Barton’s selective use of his gavel. Like his other sports-engaged colleagues, Barton has rejected calls from Democrats for hearings on substantive policy matters — oil prices, prescription drug reimportation, and the politicization of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, among other things — but jumps at the chance to talk about football.<\/p>\n

Barton said yesterday that “man doesn’t live by policy alone.” That’s true, but it’d be easier to tolerate the occasional diversion if lawmakers like Barton (and House Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter) didn’t rebuff legitimate policy issues so frequently.<\/p>\n

It’s enough to make one wonder if Congress has taken its eyes off the ball, so to speak.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I noted last week that Congress’ interest in sports seemed to be moving in an unhealthy direction. The House Government Reform Committee won’t hold hearings on issues pertaining to government reform, but it will devote time and attention to steroids and baseball. The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee won’t hold hearings on a White […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6035\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}