Well, well, well. It took George Soros for hypocritical Republican politicians to finally oppose tax-subsidized sports stadiums and antitrust exemptions for baseball.

Mark this down as a milestone moment when I side with the likes of Soros and Democrat Rep. George Miller, who asks:

Why should politics have anything to do with who owns the team…So Congress is going to get involved in every baseball ownership decision? Are they next going to worry about a manager they don’t like? I’ve never seen anything as impotent as a congressman threatening the baseball exemption. It gets threatened half a dozen times a year, and our batting average threatening the exemption is zero.

Joe Weedon at The Yellow Line has it exactly right:

It’s the Congressional Republicans that are making this a political issue, not George Soros or his ownership group. If Congress wants to be fair, perhaps the ownership groups that include ex-Senator Peter Fitzgerald and ex-Secretary of State Colin Powell should also be barred from owning the team. In fact, maybe President Bush should be asked to return the millions he made from the sale of the franchise formerly known as the Washington Senators (Texas Rangers).

It’s about time faux fiscal conservatives in the GOP got called on for their longtime championing of publicly financed sports palaces and special government exemptions, which have enriched many private individuals on both sides of the political aisle. This stupid anti-Soros stunt is blowing up in Republicans’ faces.

As well it should.

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Ed Morrissey adds:

What the hell?

This is what concerns our GOP caucus at the moment? What happened to Social Security reform, trimming pork from the budget, and supporting the war effort? Why do two Republicans in the House have anything to say about the ownership of the Nats?

Life must truly be perfect if this is what gets Sweeney and Davis perturbed.

The Agitator:

This is absolutely unacceptable behavior from a public official. Perhaps it’s to be expected from a guy like Davis. But it’s despicable. Davis is making a public threat to sanction a private industry for doing business with a political opponent.

Gerry Daly sez: [T]hreatening sanctions to a private enterprise because one disagrees with the politics of a prospective owner is a blatent abuse of power.

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Previous:

Bush’s baseball tax fetish
The mother of all stadium boondoggles
Playing hardball with taxpayers
Stadium sanity in DC
Porkwatch alert

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