Rep. Patrick Murphy deserves a back rub

February 15th, 2008 | Posted by PostmanE

It’s been a long week for governmental influence in sports. The Roger Clemens hearings were not only a black eye on Clemens’ reputation, they made Henry Waxman and the rest of the crew look like a bunch of buffoons. The common cliche was: “Doesn’t Congress have anything better to do, like, um, the war?” After watching Tuesday’s hearings, be glad they choose to ignore important policy issues. If Dan Burton gets within a hundred yards of thinking about anything important, we’re all totally fucked. (Oh, and let’s not forget about Arlen Specter, whose closed-door meetings with Roger Goodell are almost as sneaky as the Patriots’ taping scandal in the first place.)

No, it has not been a good week for the sporting minds in Congress. Fortunately, one congressman stands alone:

On Wednesday, the House passed a resolution congratulating the New York Giants on winning this year’s Super Bowl “and completing one of the most remarkable postseason runs in professional sports history.” The resolution passed by a vote of 412 to 1.

Murphy, a diehard Eagles fan who worked at Veterans Stadium as a security guard when he was 16, was the only House member to vote against it. “As a former 700-level security guard and lifelong Eagles fan, I couldn’t, in good conscience, vote for the New York Giants,” Murphy said Thursday. “The only thing worse would have been a resolution honoring the Dallas Cowboys.”

Philadelphia Will Do classifies Patrick Murphy as the “greatest U.S. representative of all-time,” though that may be a tiny overstatement. I’m thinking the title: “Patrick Murphy — 8,000 times cooler than Henry Waxman” should be praise enough.