Off topic: Did Sen. Specter play football without a helmet?

You might think it ludicrous - even beyond the pale - for a United States Senator to suggest hauling the commissioner of the National Football League up to Capitol Hill to explain his handling of "Spygate," the by now insufferably beaten-to-death rules controversy involving the New England Patriots and a video camera. In fact, you might say such an absurd abuse of political firepower would be analogous to concocting the "magic bullet theory" to backstop a discredited Warren Commission or savaging a noble woman in the interest of salvaging a shameful Supreme Court nomination.

Then again, you might be Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who has now accomplished all three without so much as blushing.

Now, I don't honestly believe that Specter's Super Bowl week headline-hogging belongs in the same paragraph with his abuses of physics and Anita Hill. No, I pile on the hyperbole merely as a prelude to Specter's own words - and his own tortured use of analogy - in explaining why he believes this sort of sports silliness rises to a level that requires the scrutiny of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

A presumably straight-faced Specter, who's foremost questioning the NFL's decision to destroy videotapes related to "Spygate," tells the New York Times: "The NFL has a very preferred status in our country with their antitrust exemption. The American people are entitled to be sure about the integrity of the game. It's analogous to the CIA destruction of tapes."

Breathtaking, even by political standards.

Let's skip by the antitrust and integrity claptrap.

"It's analogous to the CIA destruction of tapes."

What he refers to there, of course, are CIA tapes that were destroyed by the CIA because they showed CIA employees torturing prisoners and the CIA feared the tapes would become public.

The tapes the NFL destroyed - after severely penalizing the Patriots for having created them - purportedly showed images of opponents' coaches giving hand signals.

Torture on the one hand.

Hand signals on the other.

By now those of you who don't know for certain are probably suspecting that I live in New England and will be rooting for the Patriots come Sunday.

Guilty as charged.

However, I'd like to believe that even the most rabid Patriots hater out there a) would believe the Senate Judiciary Committee has more important matters to consider; b) wouldn't conflate cheating at football - if that's what you believe the Patriots did - with torturing human beings; and, c) consider Arlen Specter an arse.

(Update: Commissioner explains what that blowhard Specter doesn't understand.)

(Update 2: Pro Football Weekly's Matt Sohn agrees, noting the obvious: This isn't a legal issue.) 

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