Keep that awful Hungarian away from baseball!

Attaturk points us to the Washington Post, no stranger to political agendas worn on the sleeve, where Sally Jenkins can't quite believe the rankness of Republicans' demand that Soros not be permitted to bid on the Washingtn Nationals.

I don't much care about George Soros, and I don't care at all which rich guy gets the privilege of spending $400 million in heavy sugar on the Nats. But I do care when members of a ruling party start pushing people around, because next, it could be me. This is supposed to be the party that doesn't believe in government telling business or private citizens what to do. So here's what I have to say to Davis about that: Get your boot off my front porch, mister.

Davis, who first expressed his views in Roll Call, contends he is just speaking as a citizen -- "This is one fan's opinion." -- but he can't hide behind a hot dog, or a flag, on this one. Davis is chair of the House Committee on Government Reform, which has been investigating steroid usage in baseball. Therefore, it's not just unseemly for him to pressure MLB on the Nats sale. It's a bald abuse of power.

An even nastier abuse came from Rep. John Sweeney (R-N.Y.), who actually suggested baseball's antitrust exemption might be in trouble on the Hill if MLB let Soros have the Nats. It's one thing to threaten MLB for failing to govern drug usage -- Congress was quite right to do that. It's quite another to threaten it over one prospective owner's politics. In doing so, Davis and Sweeney just cost themselves all credibility.

You can't help wondering what's behind the outrageous attack on Soros, who isn't even a major partner in the bid for the Nats. (Local entrepreneur Jon Ledecky is the real bidder.) Isn't it strange that rival bidder Fred Malek, the head of the Washington Baseball club, just happens to be a very big GOP fundraiser? And isn't it strange that, in a telephone interview, Davis went out of his way to praise Malek's bid? And isn't it strange that these attacks on Soros from Republicans came on the very day that Ledecky and his partners were being interviewed by MLB?

Davis doesn't bother to hide his agenda. He says straight out that baseball needs to cultivate some good will on Capitol Hill at the moment, given the steroid investigations, and that selling the team to billionaire Soros, a critic of President Bush and a massive financial supporter of liberal causes, would anger him.

"They could use some friends on the Hill right now, and this is not the way to make them," Davis said yesterday.

But no, it's not because a crony has a competing bid on the table, its because Soros is a dope fiend.

Davis called Soros "a convicted felon" and "pro-marijuana." He was referring to Soros's conviction in France on insider trading charges, and to the fact that Soros favors the decriminalization of marijuana, and clean needle programs, as a way to combat drug use.

"You've got a league with a steroid problem, and you're going to sell the team to a guy who is pro marijuana? I just don't think we need or want that in the nation's capital. I just don't think you want such a polarizing figure."

Or maybe because he's just not one of us?

But Davis has another problem with Soros, too. He's an "out of towner." Listening to Davis, you wonder if he's next going to say Soros's Hungarian accent is too thick.

"I mean, to me, Soros is the guy who has so much money and wants to buy the world," Davis said. "I mean that's not what baseball's about. This is above all a fan sport. This is the Nationals, and they're going to give it to some multinational?"

Unbelievable. And Jenkins' tale gets worse.