Will Specter ever stop haunting Patriots?

ShareThis

I can't wait to hear what Senator Arlen Specter, the righteous Republican from Pennsylvania, has to say today. I know, I know, most everyone -- everyone in New England, at least -- wants the overblown scandal known as "Spygate'' to be over, but it won't be over until the fatuous senator sings. I'd love to hear from Matt Walsh, too, although that's not likely to happen any time soon, since we found out Tuesday he really has nothing revelatory to say. As for the Boston Herald, which published a story the day before Super Bowl XLII in Phoenix in February, that the Patriots, on the day before Super Bowl XVI in New Orleans in 2002, videotaped the walkthrough workout of the St. Louis Rams, the Herald apologized for that story on the front page of Wednesday's edition.If that was done, it was without the knowledge of Walsh, who did most of the illegal videotaping of opponents' sideline signals that season. You say you're sick of Spygate? Well, I can readily see why it would turn your stomach. But I can't wait to hear how Sen. Senile, instead of worrying about housing foreclosures, $4-a-gallon gasoline, and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, will try to turn up something that will keep the nation's attention riveted where he clearly feels it rightly belongs -- on the sorry saga that is Spygate. It all should have been over in September, after the Patriots were caught, fined, paid the even heftier price of a first-round draft choice, and also were embarrassed and humiliated in the bargain, their reputation as a talent-laden team coached by a gridiron genius tarnished and sullied. That should have been it. Except, as they kept winning, the story kept going. Was it because of the media's dislike of coach Bill Belichick? Was it because of envy, across sporting America, of the team's, not just success, but absolute dominance? Whatever the reason, Spygate wouldn't go away. Worse, certainly from the Patriots' standpoint, the story became even bigger in the days preceding the Super Bowl, when Sen. Silly demanded to know why NFL commissioner Roger Goodell had destroyed "evidence" -- the videotapes the Patriots had turned over to the league -- and the Herald cast aspersions on New England's first Super Bowl victory, asserting that the Pats had surreptitiously videotaped St. Louis' final, pre-game practice. Walsh blew holes in that story larger than the ones the Patriots' linemen opened for Laurence Maroney this season, telling Goodell that he had no knowledge of any walkthrough tape, that no one ever had asked him to tape the walkthrough, and that he did not know of anyone in the New England organization who had ever seen such a tape. That prompted a statement of righteous indignation from the club. Which, while it had every right to be indignant, arguably forfeited the moral high ground or righteousness when it confessed last fall to years of illegal taping. Since the integrity of the Patriots was called into question, how about the credibility of the Herald editors who allowed the story to run, and the writer under whose byline the story appeared -- John Tomase? And so we wait to hear what Sen. Spectre of Scandal has to say today. Because, as much as the New England Patriots and their fans would wish otherwise, the last word has not been heard on the subject of Spygate. Conspiracy theorists and scandalmongers had hoped that Walsh would throw more dirt on the already-soiled Pats. Instead, after he came clean Tuesday in the NFL offices in New York City, it was Specter and the Herald who were soiled. Goodell never bought into Belichick's feeble justification for his actions -- that his interpretation of the rule was that the taping was permissible as long as he didn't make use of the information in the same game. Walsh, by the way, told the commissioner Tuesday that the tapes he made were not used during the game. "I'm pretty well on the record," commissioner Goodell said, "that I didn't accept Bill Belichick's explanation for what happened, and I still don't, to this day." Perhaps then, Spygate really will be over. But don't count on it. Somebody, somewhere, is sure to have something else silly to say.(Contact Jim Donaldson at jdonalds@projo.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)