“Ridgely, the arrogant abuse of power is its own reward.”
D.A. Ridgely on Jan 30th 2010 07:49 pm |
Those words, said with a twinkle in his eye, were spoken to a very young D.A. Ridgely by his boss way back in the 1970s in the acquisitions policy office of the Navy Secretariat. The context back then is irrelevant, but the words came to mind about the topic at hand, which is the prospect of federal involvement in NCAA football. Sports Illustrated reports:
The Obama administration is considering several steps that would review the legality of the controversial Bowl Championship Series, the Justice Department said in a letter Friday to a senator who had asked for an antitrust review.
In the letter to Sen. Orrin Hatch, obtained by The Associated Press, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich wrote that the Justice Department is reviewing Hatch’s request and other materials to determine whether to open an investigation into whether the BCS violates antitrust laws.
“Importantly, and in addition, the administration also is exploring other options that might be available to address concerns with the college football postseason,” Weich wrote, including asking the Federal Trade Commission to review the legality of the BCS under consumer protection laws.
I won’t go so far as to say I couldn’t eventually come up with matters that were even less the business of the federal government than which college football teams go to what post-season bowl games or how the so-called national championship is determined, but I will go so far as to say that it would take some effort.
Mind you, I understand that big time college football is big business. Huge sums of money are involved, almost none of which by the way trickles down to the semi-pro “student athletes” who compete at that level. I understand, also — hell, I live in Texas where the average high school football stadium is significantly larger than at my undergraduate alma mater — that there is tremendous national interest in college football. But there is tremendous national interest in American Idol, the Academy Awards, most major professional sports (all of which are de facto monopolies) and whether Jay Leno or Conan O’Brien should get the Tonight Show, too, but none of those things merits a federal investigation, let alone threats of litigation because the likes of Orrin Hatch thinks his home state school got screwed by the current BCS system.
Hatch bloviates as follows:
I continue to believe there are antitrust issues the administration should explore, but I’m heartened by its willingness to consider alternative approaches to confront the tremendous inequities in the BCS that favor one set of schools over others. The current system runs counter to basic fairness that every family tries to instill in their children from the day they are born.
What the hell? Could there be anything even remotely less egalitarian than American colleges and universities, let alone their damned sports teams? Does Hatch also think that the feds should investigate U.S. News‘ annual academic beauty pageant because the University of Utah (current rank: #126) has yet to be ranked anywhere within shouting distance of Princeton?
I understand Barack Obama believing the federal government has a justifiable role in the workings of intercollegiate athletics because, after all, he believes the government has a justifiable role in everything. But if Orrin Hatch, routinely described as a conservative Republican, believes that your and my tax dollars should be spent pressuring the NCAA to devise a playoff system that will be “fair” to the hundred and twenty current Division 1 FBS teams, what on Earth does he believe would be a frivolous or inappropriate or overreaching use of federal power?
Filed in The Bleachers, The Bureau
It’s hard to agree further. You’ve hit on the most manipulated word in the whole discussion: fair.
Small-government conservatism is a myth. If you think about it, a conservative is basically a person who has a fantastical view of a past which never really existed and who is willing to use all of the power of government in order to impose that vision on everyone else. In contrast, a progressive is basically a person who has a fantastical view of a future which never really could exist and who is willing to use all of the power of government in order to impose that vision on everyone else.
Miko: I think that’s the best explanation of modern politics I’ve heard yet.
So do libertarians have a fantastical view of the present?
Matty –
Perhaps: We libertarians believe that everyone in the present is usually capable of taking care of him or herself.
But why are sports federal business in a way that American Idol or Leno are not? Simple. Sports recapitulate combat. They are the Hegelian struggle writ small. Politicians have an instinct toward this type of thinking, and it guides them in their meddling.
If so, that merely reinforces my position that nothing good can come from reading Hegel.
The government has always muddled unnecessarily in sports. What seems particularly interesting is Obama’s seemingly incessant need to prove himself as the sporty president. Every attempt he gets seems to be an overly contrived attempt to show that he’s “down” with sports in a way that no former president, or politician even, was. He has to fill out a March Madness bracket on ESPN and practice with UNC. He goes overboard pimping for Chicago sports teams. He feels the need to weigh in as the “first fan” with regards to the BCS. And, if you listen closely to anything he actually says about sports, it doesn’t seem like he actually knows what he’s talking about. It’s like he’s the nerdy guy who wants to show that maybe he’s not as nerdy as everyone thinks, and the gross attempts at overcompensating are just getting annoying. And, it’s one thing to be on ESPN wasting time… it’s quite another to waste Congress’s time and our tax dollars.
‘Could there be anything even remotely less egalitarian than American colleges and universities, let alone their damned sports teams?’
FBS football is not egalitarian. Orrin Hatch is correct that the Mountain West Conference gets screwed by the current system (as, to a lesser extent, do the other divisions that don’t get an automatic bid. Independents, which basically means Notre Dame, on the other hand, are advantaged).
Colleges and universities do have a large federal imprint, relative to, say American Idol.
Also, all of the senators (I assume) went to a college or university and so have some personal attachment, in the way they don’t have with, say, Leno.
I’d also guess that the senators (in general) have a lot more knowledge converning football than they do the modern music scene, as represented by Idol.
None of this means they should be intervening, but, on the other hand, if they’re spending time on this, they’re not directly harming the economy somewhere else. I wish they’d spend all of their time on stuff like this.