Political gamesmanship on full display in BCS dust-up

The minor spectacle of lawmakers from both sides of the aisle ganging up on the coordinator of the Bowl Championship Series last week is the most encouraging story to come from Washington since George W. Bush declared mission accomplished in Iraq.

The congressional committee hearing must mean that the nation's biggest problems have been resolved and that our wise representatives on Capitol Hill are no longer burdened with the complexities of how to fix the economy, or worried about crime, drug abuse, education, global warming or a flu pandemic.

The bipartisan concern over the BCS is a sign that everything is under control from the Mexican border to Afghanistan to North Korea to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and that members of Congress now feel free to turn their attention to protecting American consumers from the dangers of college bowl games.

It's good to know that they have our best interests at heart.

Though he wasn't present at the hearing, the nation's First Fan, Barack Obama, has been at the rhetorical forefront of Washington's movement to stamp out the national menace the BCS has become.

Last November, he told "60 Minutes" that he would prefer an eight-team playoff. "So," he said, "I'm going to throw my weight around a little bit."

And when members of BCS champion Florida dropped in on the White House a few days ago, Obama couldn't resist saying, "I'm not backing off the fact that we need a playoff system."

Obama's approval rating is a lot higher than that of the BCS, while just last week, someone even more popular than the president - Penn State coach Joe Paterno - added his voice once again to the chorus of playoff supporters.

Meanwhile, in Washington, Rep. Joe Barton of Texas was saying that the BCS could not be saved or tailored, that it must be destroyed.

"It's like communism," he said. "You can't fix it."

Barton, a Republican, has introduced legislation that would prevent the NCAA from labeling a game a national championship unless it is preceded by a playoff.

At the same time, in the Senate, Utah Republican Orrin Hatch has added the BCS to the agenda for the Judiciary's antitrust subcommittee later this year, while Utah's attorney general is hoping to make the case that the BCS violates federal antitrust laws.

The BCS may rue the day it passed over undefeated Utah for the national championship game last year.

Absorbing the brunt of the attack from a subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, BCS coordinator and North Carolina athletic director John Swofford was subjected to political fulmination better suited for investigations into Katrina or meth labs in rural America.

Best he could, Swofford supported the status quo, but defending the bowls runs against popular sentiment. As currently constituted, the bowl season is widely portrayed as obsolete - an obstacle to progress and the president's enjoyment of college football.

Long before Washington picked up on it, the BCS was understood to be a cartel interested in controlling most of the postseason money. A spasm of political theater is not likely to change that soon. For one thing, TV expresses satisfaction with the current scenario.

There's no reason to doubt BCS greed, but a failure to protect a large portion of the current bowl system would be shortsighted. Also, it's not as if a playoff wouldn't be without its pitfalls.

For an eight-team tournament, fans of the two finalists would be expected to travel long distances to fill stadiums for three games. Considering the new economic realities, would boosters in sufficient numbers have the wherewithal to schlep around the country?

If not, would the federal government, as a playoff partner looking out for the fan, offer travel stimulus packages?

We'll be hearing a lot more about this political football. But for the time being, Washington's urgency to rid the country of the BCS is marked by a questionable sense of proportion.

Bob Molinaro, (757) 446-2373, bob.molinaro@pilotonline.com