The Specter of Overkill

Would somebody please send U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter a letter, e-mail, fax, anything — heck, a telegram would suffice — telling him to just move on from the NFL's Spygate.

It's over. Done. Cooked like a turducken during a Lions Thanksgiving Day game.

Still, the once-esteemed Pennsylvania senator (I say once-esteemed because he's clearly offsides in this battle) wants to orchestrate a deeper investigation into the NFL's most scandalous story in decades. He's calling for an independent inquiry into the actions of the Patriots and the NFL's handling of reviewing tapes from Spygate.

The guy just doesn't know when to quit. He's like the guy that gets dumped one day and shows up at his ex's front door for a previously scheduled date the next.

The only person that's interested is him.

The greater public has put Spygate behind them. We've acknowledge another cheating incident that have so tainted sports in the past decade, and we're ready to move on. The NFL has finished its investigation and slapped Patriots head coach Bill Belichick on the wrist, albeit with a tree trunk rather than a ruler. Belichick has been mum on the subject for months now, though the same probably could be said for world politics, his personal life, or the status of Tom Brady's throwing shoulder.

But all alone in his little Washington office, the Pennsylvania senator is prepping for overtime.

Specter has anointed himself the world's most important middle school principal, charged with the task of rooting out cheaters. And he's starting at what he sees the highest point of society — an association that pays Terrell Owens nearly $10 million each year.

Forget holding politicans accountable. Specter's got bigger Fins to fry.

The most aggravating aspect of the Specter of overkill is that amount of time the senator has dedicated to beating a dead horse (my apologies to Eight Belles). Specter has interviewed the world's most famous football peon, Patriots video assistant Matt Walsh, held television press conferences that make ESPN producers salivate, met personally with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, and done who knows what else to needle his way into the Spygate mix. (By the way, who invited Specter to this party? Should we be expecting Nancy Pelosi to badger Major League Baseball next?)

While Specter says he is "incensed" with the NFL's handling of the Spygate fiasco, imagine the Pennsylvania constituency he represents. Rather than addressing the state's trying economic times or the country's ongoing housing crisis, Specter spends his work days trying to uncover the inner workings of a sport scandal executed by an assistant golf professional in Hawaii.

If nothing else (and for the record, there shouldn't be anything else), you have to commend the senator's determination. When it comes to investigating the NFL and upholding the moral aptitude of athletics in the United States, the Pennsylvania Republican is religiously sticking to his guns.

Maybe Obama wasn't so wrong about Pennsylvania after all.