Recession, injection, same thing

Really? This is what our national elected officials need to be working on at this exact moment?

I'm pretty sure there's a war going on somewhere in a desert, kids can't get decent health care, schools suck, approximately all of my paycheck goes to taxes, and I think we're now officially in a recession. I'd love it if the people we elected to make laws and approve budgets and stupid stuff like that would -- how to put this? -- do something about any of the above.

But your good buddy Arlen Specter (Wow! Would you believe he's a Republican? Sorry, a ranking Republican) wants to use his position on the Senate Judiciary Committee to grill the commissioner of the NFL about whether the New England Patriots used video surveillance to cheat. In football games. Football. Games. Games! And not the kind of football games that affect our national security, or solve fiscal crises, but ... Christ, I can't even finish this sentence ... he wants to investigate possible cheating in football!

Fortunately for Arlen, we can't direct all of our elected-officials-playing-grab-ass ire at him. That's right, kids. Congress likes to jerk around with other sports, too. The House today continued its interminable and thoroughly useless investigation of whether baseball players stuck needles in their asses. (Don't they know it's normal for a 38-year-old man's feet and head to grow?) So Roger Clemens spent five hours today signing autographs for congresmen, uh, oh, I mean speaking with "congressional lawyers" about whether or not he injected himself with performance-enhancing drugs.

Is it just me, or does this all seem like a bunch of losers doing everything they can to meet famous athletes? I can't imagine this is what the founding fathers had in mind when they came up with the bicameral legislature. On the other hand, if Congress can come up with a way for the Orioles to make the playoffs once in a while, I'd be all for it.