SOFTBALL GATE: BEYOND THE HEADLINES
TheWall Street Journal's goofy Hill Softball piece is a fun little slice-of-Washington-life piece... that happened to run on A1, for some reason. The grafted-on "symptom of greater sea change in political climate" angle seemed a bit forced to us (contents of the funny emails aside), and it looks like Anthony Reed, Hastert aide and subject of the story, agrees. He sent this email around to Hill softballers this morning:
I just wanted to send out a quick note to everyone regarding today's Wall Street Journal article about our league. A few months ago, a reporter approached me about writing a "fun" article about the new league (since he plays in it now), so I sat down and talked to him for a while about why we did it, what the aims are, etc... I can assure you that at no point did we ever discuss anything related to political party affiliation. I would echo Kenny Ames' comments in the article that as most of you know, hardly ever, does political party have anything to do with playing a game of softball after work. I wish they hadn't taken this angle for the purposes of getting a story written - I just wanted to let all of you know that in no way does that story reflect the nature of our league or what it's about.
And considering that we know of a few all-Democratic teams in the league, we're inclined to agree that the schism, while perhaps philosophical, was not partisan. Because regardless of political affiliation, no one wants their softball league to be run by pussy bleeding-heart hippies. You need a decisive totalitarian to ensure that the cases of High Life arrive on time.
(It also seems to be the consensus that insurance issues prompted the succession as well, but that's way too boring to look into).
Softball on the Mall Was Bipartisan Fun Till Politics Intruded [WSJ]