Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter is an Eagles fan.  And one of the NFL’s top cable nemeses, Comcast, is headquartered in Philly.  And Comcast has contributed plenty of money to Specter’s campaigns.  (Actually, a corporation by law can’t make political contributions; the money is given by its employees and/or the company’s political action committee.)  And Specter is now making the New England Patriots cheating scandal one of his pet projects.

Though it’s easy to decry Specter for putting his nose where it doesn’t belong and/or for doing the bidding of Comcast by “sticking it” to pro football generally, these are just some of the practical consequences of the NFL becoming a huge national player with operations in many states.  Indeed, the NFL has been using the political process to pressure the Comcasts of the world to carry NFL Network as part of standard, non-premium packages.  Why shouldn’t the Comcasts of the world use their clout to push back a bit?

And regardless of whether Specter picked last week to start picking on the Pats in order to get maximum attention for the story (by the way, it worked), we were all eventually going to learn the name “Matt Walsh,” and then someone in the House or the Senate would have been sure to seize on the story as a way to squeeze the NFL.

But while some might have concluded that Specter’s stance would soften a bit in the wake of Sunday night’s loss in the Super Bowl, he seems to be emboldened.  Though we haven’t seen the video, we hear that Specter was talking tough on NBC 10 in Philly last night.  And he did the same on WIP in Philly this morning.

Specter now says that he is interested (predictably) in finding out whether his Eagles were cheated in Super Bowl XXXIX three years ago.  He also is troubled by Commissioner Roger Goodell’s explanation regarding the prompt destruction of the materials surrendered by the Patriots in the days after Spygate I.

“If they were filming the walk-though in 2002 and they were stealing the signals in 2007, what happened in 2005 with the Eagles?” Specter told our friend Angelo Cataldi on WIP’s morning show.  “It’s part of a bigger picture,” he said.  “The league really needs some accountability, and I intend to push for it.”

The “bigger picture” is much more than the instance of one team cheating and the league possibly not doing enough to investigate the team’s broader cheating practices, if any.  Specter also mentioned issues like copyright infringement, public funding of stadiums, and the diversion of NFL games to an in-house network not widely available on a national basis.

As to those other issues, we’ve really got no position.  But we recognize that the NFL’s presence as the dominant sports league in America makes it fair game for Congress to look into things about which it may be concerned, even if there’s an argument to be made that the Senator or House member in question is doing the bidding of one of his major contributors. 

If, in the end, there’s merit to the matters into which the Arlen Specters of the world are delving, the motives are immaterial.  We all have a reason to be concerned that the current stewards of the game are doing things the right way, and we all have a right to demand that they do.