Losing The Thread

In a search for relevance one House Republican has decided to show that he's not just for, "No." He's decided to come down strongly on the side of, "Hell no!"

Texas Rep. Joe Barton likened college football's Bowl Championship Series to
"communism" Friday, even as he made the case that the system is what it is
because of money.

Think about that for a moment. In the grip of rampant capitalist fervor the BCS gets accused of Communism. It's almost as if the words "Communism" or "Socialism" no longer had meaning, as if Republicans and their supporters were just throwing them around as buzzwords.

But, surely this is just a one-off, a sad attempt at attention grabbing by a back bencher.

[ ]Barton — the panel's ranking Republican — recalled the hearing he
held on the same matter several years ago. "That time, I had hoped through a
spirit of volunteerism, the BCS would decide to go to a playoff system," he
said. "That hasn't happened yet.

So, Barton is going to bring the full force of the Federal government to bear upon College Football.

“The legislation we are introducing today will prohibit the marketing,
promotion, and advertising of a post-season game as a ‘national championship’
football game, unless it is the result of a playoff system. Violations of the
prohibition will be treated as violations of the Federal Trade Commission Act as
an unfair or deceptive act or practice, and provides the FTC with civil penalty
authority.

Yes, I know. President Obama has also weighed in on the BCS system. So far as I know, though, he's not been wasting the time of The Energy and Commerce Committee of the HoR holding hearings and threatening the conferences about it.