As The Nats Turn

You know something? The Washington Post has the best stable of sports columnists in the country. Tony "Monday Night Football" Kornheiser, Mike Wilbon, Mike Wise, Andrew Beyer (apparently, an essential voice in the world of horse racing), and of course, Tom "The Bozz" Boswell. Sometimes, I find Boswell to be a little boring, but when he's on, there's no other columnist I find myself agreeing with more. I just nod my head throughout the entire column.

A great example is his column today on the the ongoing saga with the Washington Nationals, which is a joke and a disgrace to the D.C. City Council. We reject. No wait, we approve it. No wait, we reject. No wait, let's have some more closed-door mediation. Council members like Adrian Fenty and Linda Cropp keep saying they don't want the stadium to be paid for by the D.C. taxpayers. Okay, fair enough. But the tax money is not going to come from regular residents, but rather from businesses and federal offices, a rent payment by the team itself, and a tax on stadium concessions. So don't make it sound like the Sheriff of Nottingham is coming around to take food away from babies and steal glasses away from blind people.

And once (or if) the admittedly pricey $700 million stadium gets built as part of the revitalization of the Anacostia waterfront, that is going to bring in BILLIONS of dollars and other benefits for the city. If you can't see the public benefit of improving that area and putting in a whole new sports and shopping district for the city and its visitors to enjoy, then I don't know what you're doing pretending you are a public servant.

These council members just don't see the forest for the trees. I hope this costs Cropp and Fenty their mayoral election bids this year (what a coincidence that two mayoral candidates would take such high-profile positions on such a high-profile issue in an election year! But right, they do it for the good of the city.)

Because when Major League Baseball's leaders are saying you're incompetent and playing dirty and you aren't doing what's best for those who pay your bills, then that's really saying something.