My tax dollars pay this guy?

Arlen Specter.

Even his name sounds creepy at best, sinister even.

If you don't know, he is a United States Senator from Pennsylvania. He has been in office for more than 27 years now and has been very involved in many of the big legislative events of the past 3 decades.

He is a Republican, but unlike most of the GOP, he is unafraid to break ranks and vote how he truly believes, for which I must give him mild kudos (mostly for speaking out against the impeachment of Bill Clinton, but also for his support of a substantially higher minimum wage and his support for stem-cell research.)

However, like almost all politicians, he gets caught up in matters that are suspect and seemingly inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. He has time and again taken up the banner, crusading against the National Football League. Now why would a politician continue to rail against the NFL? We'll get to that answer in a few moments. Recently, Specter has demanded answers of Roger Goodell (the Commissioner of said League) regarding "Spygate" (the scandal involving the New England Patriots and illegal videotaping of opposing teams signals.) He believes the investigation by the League was biased and that there was an inside cover-up, now demanding that a Congressional investigation be initiated to uncover the truth.

This is not the first time he has taken a hard stance regarding the NFL. In 2005 he sought to have the NFL investigated for violation of anti-trust laws over the Philadelphia Eagles and their handling of Pro-Bowl wide receiver Terrell Owens. In 2007, he sought to have the law that allows the National Football League to sign lucrative television contracts on behalf of all 32 teams repealed. In February 2008, he sought to have religious organizations declared exempt from NFL copyright laws.

Why would one senator keep attacking one organization so harshly? Could it be that he actually feels that the NFL doesn't deserve an anti-trust exemption? I mean, he is on the anti-trust subcommittee headed by Herb Kohl of Wisconsin (who coincidentally owns a major sports franchise.) Is he just an irate Eagles fan who is still bitter about a Super Bowl loss to the "cheating" Patriots? All signs point to no. This is the point the sinister nature of his name comes back into play.

The second largest contributor to his campaigns over the years has been Comcast Cable. The largest donor is the Law Firm Blank Rome, which "coincidentally" represents Comcast Cable. Comcast has been locked in a legal dispute with the NFL and its own television station, the NFL Network for the past 3 years. Arlen Specter has publicly declared that he would support legislation ending the NFL's anti-trust exemption, allowing local teams to negotiate their own cable contracts to the benefit of Comcast. It appears that Specter has violated the code of ethics for senators because of the link between his two largest donors and his attack on the NFL.

It also appears to me that he is currently violating a humane code of ethics, in that he is concentrating his legislative and influential prowess into something so irrelevant as the TV contracts for football teams, when he could be doing something good. Especially when put in stark contrasts of the events around the world in the past few months; an estimated 200,000 deaths in Burma, 300,000 displaced Chinese citizens by the forthcoming Olympics, increasing teen drug usage, housing markets falling, foreclosures increasing, trade deficits with almost every trading partner we have, increasing "pork" in legislative bills, a still broken New Orleans, etc, etc, etc.

Instead, Mr. Specter cares about football. Rah Rah Rah.