Jumping To Conclusions

Republican Congressman Tom Davis, last known for holding Congressional hearings on the key national security issue of the private lives of major league baseball players, is at it again. With all major national problems resolved, he has come up with a new issue to focus Congressional attention on: who should own a major league baseball team.

One might think that would be an issue for a private business to work out -- but as the Supreme Court showed just last week, in the modern world of Washington DC, there's no such thing as private business.

The hearings chaired by Davis a couple of months ago, as outrageous as they were, at least theoretically bore some distant relationship to federal policy. One may question -- and so I do -- why the federal government would have a policy on steroid use, but it does, so there's some logic in holding hearings on the subject.

But now? Now Davis is threatening partisan retaliation against Major League Baseball if they allow someone he doesn't like to own a team:

Republicans in Congress threatened Major League Baseball on Monday with repeal of its antitrust exemption if billionaire financier George Soros is involved in buying the Washington Nationals.

Soros, who contributed more than $20 million to groups in an attempt to unseat President Bush last year, recently joined an ownership group led by entrepreneur Jonathan Ledecky.

[...]

"I think Major League Baseball understands the stakes," House Government Reform chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., told Roll Call.

"I don't think they want to get involved in the political fights."

Davis, who convened the recent congressional hearings on steroids, added, "I don't think it's the Nats that get hurt. I think it's Major League Baseball that gets hurt. They enjoy all sorts of exemptions from antitrust laws."

No misprint there. Davis is threatening to impose special federal regulations on MLB if they allow a staunch Democrat to become a minority owner of a baseball team.

Predictably, Democrats show that they Just Don't Get It:

Said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., chairman of the House Democratic Policy Committee, in a statement: "Tom Davis should be charged with an error for this abusive political power play.

"It should be offensive not just to Democrats, but to all voting Americans that Republicans might manipulate the legislative process for partisan purposes in response to the potential purchase of a baseball team by someone who does not support the current Republican agenda."

Miller's right: it is offensive. But Tom Davis is merely a symptom of the problem. And ultimately, George Miller is just as guilty as Davis is. After all, Miller was gung-ho about participating in Davis's earlier steroids hearings. Miller's complaint isn't abuse of government power; Miller's complaint is just that the victim of that abuse is now on his side of the aisle.

What Miller will never acknowledge -- being a Big (or is it Huge?) Government Democrat -- is that Tom Davis can make such threats because people like George Miller empowered him to do so.