From Spygate to Steroids: Time for the Government To Let It Die

Since when were sports the most important thing on the agenda of our United States politicians?                       

Well, apparently "now" is the answer to that question—and quite frankly, that’s unfortunate. 

From Spygate to steroids, it seems like our government officials care more about what’s going on in the MLB and NFL than what they do for what’s going on overseas in Iraq.  It seems like they might care more about sporting scandals more than what they care about our own economy for that matter.

And one really has to wonder, why is this the case?  There’s clearly more important things out there to focus on than the Spygate scandal in football or the steroid usage in baseball.  To name a few: Iraq, the war on terror, rising oil prices, and the recession.

To be honest here, it’s understandable as to why our government officials are giving sporting scandals so much attention.  Sports are a multibillion dollar industry that brings in huge amounts of money on a yearly basis.  It’s understandable that they’d want to clear things up in these to make sure that they keep bringing in the money they do on a yearly basis. 

Beyond this, sports are a huge part of our culture.  Not only do they bring in a huge surplus of money every year, but they’re popular.  From the NBA to the NFL, there’s a huge following of each sport in this country, and most fans would love to know what’s going on internally.  Most fans probably appreciate knowing if players are cheating or if a team is getting an unfair advantage. 

And to our government’s credit, they have done this.  They’ve given all of us fans an opportunity to know who is cheating and who isn’t. 

But now, enough is enough.  It needs to stop.  Quite frankly, there can’t be much more they can accomplish anyways. 

The Patriots have already been penalized for cheating, The NFL thinks it's enough—and in their eyes, Spygate is closed. 

While baseball hasn’t punished its steroid users for their past usage, they’ve laid down strict policies and set up random drug testing to prevent this from happening again. 

Beyond that, some of the big culprits are already in court over the issue.  Barry Bonds was recently indicted on 14 counts of perjury from the BALCO case while Roger Clemens is facing potential perjury charges from his day in Congress against Brian McNamee. 

In reality, these cases are probably all far from over.  If our government has its way, they’ll continue to dig at this.  Arlen Specter has already called for further investigation into Spygate while there seems to be more and more news coming from the Clemens case on a weekly basis. 

However, it’s really unfortunate that this is continuing.  While sports are important in our society, there are clearly more important things to focus on than the scandals that are involved in them. 

Unfortunately, our government doesn’t seem to completely see it this way.