New York Times Editorial - An un-American pastime
New York Times Editorial - An un-American pastime
Copyright by The New York Times
FRIDAY, APRIL 28, 2006
The partisan divide afflicting Capitol politics has spilled out onto the Washington Mall, where Congressional staff members' springtime frolic of softball games after work is degenerating into ideological hardball. Complaints that easygoing Democratic players prefer "softball welfare" and that hard-sliding Republicans are into "class warfare" precipitated a schism. More than 100 teams have broken away to form a league of their own led by a Republican commissioner, abandoning 80 other teams to fend for themselves on the greensward.
The sticking point, according to The Wall Street Journal, is the championship playoff system long run by a Democratic commissioner - a bleeding heart approach, in the view of Republican batters. It forces the teams with the strongest records to risk playing one another in the opening challenges, rather than letting them feast first on the weaker teams, as in the great American way of professional sports.
For decades, anyone wandering the Mall could appreciate the staff members' innocent games as agenda-free gambols. As a kind of get-acquainted farm system for the future corps of incumbents, spinmeisters and anonymous sources. But these days, no lark is to be spared in the ideological war.
Perhaps Congress should take time out from mangling the budget to contemplate what its tooth-and- claw behavior has wrought in skewing one of the few bits of innocent fun in Washington.
Copyright by The New York Times
FRIDAY, APRIL 28, 2006
The partisan divide afflicting Capitol politics has spilled out onto the Washington Mall, where Congressional staff members' springtime frolic of softball games after work is degenerating into ideological hardball. Complaints that easygoing Democratic players prefer "softball welfare" and that hard-sliding Republicans are into "class warfare" precipitated a schism. More than 100 teams have broken away to form a league of their own led by a Republican commissioner, abandoning 80 other teams to fend for themselves on the greensward.
The sticking point, according to The Wall Street Journal, is the championship playoff system long run by a Democratic commissioner - a bleeding heart approach, in the view of Republican batters. It forces the teams with the strongest records to risk playing one another in the opening challenges, rather than letting them feast first on the weaker teams, as in the great American way of professional sports.
For decades, anyone wandering the Mall could appreciate the staff members' innocent games as agenda-free gambols. As a kind of get-acquainted farm system for the future corps of incumbents, spinmeisters and anonymous sources. But these days, no lark is to be spared in the ideological war.
Perhaps Congress should take time out from mangling the budget to contemplate what its tooth-and- claw behavior has wrought in skewing one of the few bits of innocent fun in Washington.
posted by Carlos T Mock at 7:36 AM
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