Here's an interesting perspective as follow-up to yesterday's discussion about sports, congress, and taxes Some key quotes -- first on baseball:
Did they have the power to really bring charges? Uh, no. Did they have the power to reach a verdict and impose a penalty? Come on now. So what were they doing there? They appeared at Clemens' request, after he had gone around and personally schmoozed a selected group of them.
Really? Clemens asked them to appear? Yikes! Anyway, I agree with this line of thinking:
Now this is going to sound very simplistic to you. If a person is suspected of a crime, bring charges and file them and let the court decide. Why is that such a hard concept to accept? Why give these congressmen and congresswoman a forum to show how dopey they are?
Now on to football:
But the way Commissioner Goodell did it was to allow the Patriots to investigate themselves and gather their own evidence.
At least that's the way it was presented ... tapes the Patriots produced, representing six years of ... well, legal, or illegal, or fringe-legal, who knows? evidence, plus "notes and other material," whatever that means. And you have to believe that there was a lot more material, gathered over the course of six years.
Sure, that's the way to do it. Let the suspects bring up a case against themselves. That's the way the NCAA does it when it's checking into violations, and every time I hear that phrase, "The University cooperated in the investigation," I have to laugh, the same as I did with this Goodell thing.
He doesn't really get to suggesting what should have been done instead, but I'm sure there's a "congress isn't needed here" solution we could all agree on. Or maybe not.
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