Heaven Forfend!

It took 36 years, but George Will and I finally agree on a baseball matter. His showtrial-bashing column includes this extra flourish of conservative-on-Republican rhetorical slappery:

The Government Reform Committee, formerly Government Operations Committee, took today's name in 1995, during the Republican revolution to restore limited, modest government. […]

Stanley Brand, attorney for those the committee has subpoenaed, says the House rule granting the committee's jurisdiction "provides no indication" that the committee is empowered "to review a collective bargaining agreement between private parties." Not even the National Labor Relations Board, he says, evaluates "the substantive merit of collective bargaining agreements." But imitation is the sincerest form of congressional behavior, so now Rep. Joe Barton, the Texas Republican who chairs the Energy and Commerce Committee, warns all sports everywhere, "If you don't clean it up, we're going to clean it up for you." That is the voice of another conservative who has gone native in Washington.