StrictConstruct

…But only in the NFL. In a brilliant use of time and American tax dollars, Arlen Specter (R-PA) is continuing his crusade against the league’s handling of the “spygate” incident, but apparently has little regard for effectively confronting the unconstitutional spying being carried out by the government.

Mike Celizic at MSNBC’s Open Mike noted an interesting aspect of the situation which might explain this inconsistency:

“Far be it from me to suggest that a U.S. Senator could be influenced by such petty concerns as money. But if you’re scratching your head trying to figure out why Sen. Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican, is so interested in the NFL’s Spygate scandal, you could – just for fun – follow the money.

In this case, run over to Specter’s list of campaign contributions accounting at opensecrets.org. Number two on the list, with $100,100 is the cable giant Comcast Corp. Number one, with $197,500, is Blank Rome, a law firm that represents Comcast.By sheer coincidence, Comcast is one of the cable companies at war with the NFL over the league’s NFL Network. The NFL wants cable companies to carry it as part of the basic package. Comcast, among others, wants to charge for the service. The bottom line here is that a lot of fans don’t get the NFL Network.

A true representative of the people would try to get the two entities together, because that’s best for his constituents. But there’s Specter doing everything he can to tell NFL commissioner Roger Goodell how to run his league and threatening to inflict an act of Congress on him.”

And he continues…

“Specter’s one of the champions of fairness who wants to fix it so that the President, Vice President and telecoms will be immune from prosecution for spying on citizens illegally. In other words, cheaters will be cleared after the fact of their cheating.

That’s fine with Specter, because it involves only a violation of the civil liberties of ordinary Americans who don’t contribute hundreds of thousands of dollars to his campaign funds. The NFL, on the other hand, is messing with the profit margin of the folks stuffing his coffers.”

I would like to think it goes without saying that there are more pressing issues facing this nation than how the NFL handles internal issues, but I suppose if that were truly the case this would not be happening in the first place.