Respect my Authoritaahhhh or I will kick you in the Nats

Congressman Loose Cannon is at it again. He and a fellow Congressional imbecile sparked a controversy yesterday with regard to the eventual sale of the Washington Nationals by Major League Baseball. Consider:

Major League Baseball hasn’t narrowed the list of the eight bidders seeking to buy the Washington Nationals and some Republicans on Capitol Hill already are hinting at revoking the league’s antitrust exemption if billionaire financier George Soros , an ardent critic of President Bush and supporter of liberal causes, buys the team [in a group headed by Washington entrepreneur Jonathan Ledecky].

“It’s not necessarily smart business sense to have anybody who is so polarizing in the political world,” Rep. John E. Sweeney (R-N.Y.) said. “That goes for anybody, but especially as it relates to Major League Baseball because it’s one of the few businesses that get incredibly special treatment from Congress and the federal government.”

Rep. Tom M. Davis III (R-Va.), who was a strong supporter of bringing a baseball team to Virginia, told Roll Call yesterday that “Major League Baseball understands the stakes” if Soros buys the team. “I don’t think they want to get involved in a political fight.”

For fuck’s sake, what is wrong with him? We all know that no one in Congress will pull Major League Baseball’s antitrust exemption because then they’d have no tool with which to threaten Bud Selig. (Representatives Davis and Sweeney make Bud Selig appear to be a statesman in this debate, which is especially pathetic for the Congressmen because Mr. Selig has said nothing.) So why the idiocy? Could it be a growing, insatiable hunger for power and nanny-statism? Consider:

Democrats weren’t about to let the broadsides go unanswered.

“Why should politics have anything to do with who owns the team,” Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) asked. “So Congress is going to get involved in every baseball ownership decision? Are they next going to worry about a manager they don’t like? I’ve never seen anything as impotent as a congressman threatening the baseball exemption. It gets threatened half a dozen times a year, and our batting average threatening the exemption is zero.”

It’s not just Democrats who are commenting on the stupidity. Consider Michelle Malkin, Instapundit and Andrew Sullivan. Representatives Davis and Sweeney should know that when Michelle Malkin and I share an opinion 100%, they’ve slammed through the wall of questionable judgment into an unambiguous zone worthy of constant mockery.

The Washington Post followed up with Rep. Davis and received this response:

Davis didn’t return calls to his office, but spokesman Robert White said, “The point [Davis] was making was how it would look if Major League Baseball sells the hottest team in the market to a guy who spent more money than the gross domestic product of Colombia to legitimize drugs.”

After all of the Republican conservative hysterical blathering about Senator Durbin’s recent comments, I’m amused that Rep. Davis wants it both ways. His party believes that every public comment should be scrutinized before it’s delivered to be sure it’s not “traitorous”, but he has permission to pretend like we’re taking his words out of context? Nope, sorry, Congressman, you don’t get a free pass on that. You said what you said and meant it. You didn’t misspeak, nor did we impose meaning where it wasn’t. You threatened Major League Baseball to harm a political enemy’s bid for the Nationals. You attempt political blackmail and expect us to accept that as reasonable? That’s a slimy leadership governance failure and you should be removed as chairman from the House Committee on Government Reform.

(Source: The Agitator)

P.S. The gross domestic product of Columbia was projected at $83.01 billion for 2004. I can’t find reliable numbers for how much Mr. Soros spent in his effort to legalize certain drugs, but his estimated net worth, as of 2004, is $7.2 billion, nearly $75 billion less than Colombia’s gross domestic product. Off-the-cuff hyperbole or deflecting heat from a political retribution by Rep. Davis? You decide.