This morning sports and presidential politics collided when Sen. Barack Obama appeared to take a swipe at Sen. John McCain's activism on the subject of steroids.
"I gotta admit that seeing a lot of congressional hearings around steroid use is not probably the best use of congressional time," Obama said.
According to to the Washington Post:
"Appearing on ESPN Radio's "Mike & Mike in the Morning" program,
Obama did not mention the Arizonan by name. But the Democratic
presidential nominee did make clear that he would steer a different
course than McCain has in the past when he was asked "how much
government should be involved with sports and performance-enhancing
drugs."
McCain has long been closely identified with efforts on the Hill to
expose steroid use in baseball. In 2004, when McCain was chairman of
the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, his panel
held a high-profile hearing on the subject, and McCain's scrutiny
helped force Major League Baseball owners to implement a new
drug-testing policy.
McCain said the following
year that the league "can't be trusted" to handle the issue on its own,
and threatened to write legislation cracking down on
performance-enhancing drugs. A House committee also held
highly-publicized hearings on steroids in baseball in 2007.
But Obama suggested this morning there were more important things on which the government should focus.
"Kids are watching sports. They're modeling themselves on athletes," Obama said. "It's a serious problem, but it's one that you want to see the leagues themselves handle in a more appropriate way. We've got nuclear weapons and a financial meltdown to worry about. We shouldn't be worrying about steroids as much as I think sometimes we do."
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