Vince vs. Congress

Bud Selig, Roger Goodell, David Stern, Gary Bettman, and Vince McMahon. All of these men were invited to testify in front of Congress yesterday, but Vince was the only one to decline his invitation. Forbes.com has posted an article detailing all the events that happened at this event, which is just one of a seemingly endless stream of Congressional hearings about sports. Not mentioned in that article is that several Congressional members took some cheap shots at Vince McMahon. Vince responded to those cheap shots and explained why he wasn't there in a press release that was sent out last night.

Several quotes from the Forbes article made me chuckle:

"I believe that we can move forward in a measure, deliberative and bipartisan manner with legislation that seriously tackles drugs in sports." - Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill.
I wonder if Rush's dream of "a bipartisan manner" was aided by any performance enhancing drugs. After watching the waste of my tax dollars during the Clemens hearing, I left my television under the impression that the Republicans wanted to make out with Clemens while the Democrats thought Clemens was Saddam Hussein reincarnate.

"Sometimes I think we get our priorities out of order" - Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn
I believe that our federal government is wasting too much time on sports issues and not enough on some major issues. We've got a war going on, a major city in need of being rebuilt, a power system that can be shut down by an overgrown tree, and a transportation system direly in need of major overhaul and repair yet our Congress seems more interested in whether Roger Clemens took drugs and if the Patriots broke an NFL rule by using video tape inappropriately.

What do I think should be done?
I have a problem with the WWE being lumped in with the other sports. The taxpayers were originally told that the reason the baseball hearings were being held was because high school athletes were taking these drugs in the hope of becoming pro baseball players. I agree with that logic because the major sports use colleges as their feeding systems and a high school athlete can get a free college education by cheating in high school. However, I don't think anyone reading this had a pro wrestling team in their high school and the NCAA doesn't recognize pro wrestling as a sport in the collegiate ranks.

I believe that the WWE should fall under the ranks of entertainment because so many children look up to the wrestlers in the way they look up to actors and musicians. Just like wrestling, those endeavors also have an insane proportion of their stars dying at an early age. As far as the role model thing goes, it seems that a day doesn't go by when I hear about the exploits of the Spears family, Lindsay Lohan, or Paris Hilton.

As far as performance enhancing drug use goes in the entertainment industry, several musicians had their names linked to the Signature Pharmacy scandal. In the movies, Sylvester Stallone has admitted to using HGH to look buff for Rambo.

Will we ever see Congress go after the entertainment industry? As long as their lobbying money is spread throughout Washington and their news programs report on these Congressmen, I don't think that we will ever see that happen.

_{Photo: © 2006 Matt Law/About.com}