Political Capitol

World Wrestling Entertainment spokesman Robert Zimmerman, who I realize is doing his job, issued a statement today responding to an article I wrote Sunday on an aborted federal effort to investigate steroids in professional wrestling in 2009.

Former WWE CEO Linda McMahon is vying for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate and her critics, Democrat and Republican, are raising questions about her company, its programming and treatment of talent past and present.

A formal response is in the hands of my editors at Hearst. However since I know other newspapers are reporting on this matter, I wanted to respond on my blog to Zimmerman, who wrote: “WWE welcomes any and all objective, qualified and independent scrutiny of its Talent Wellness Program, which is available in its entirety at the corporate website www.corporate.wwe.com. We invite the media to compare our program to any other steroid testing program currently in place. Until the Connecticut-based Hearst Newspapers do a thorough examination of the WWE’s Talent Wellness Program, we believe readers are paying for questionable journalism.”

A few points:

1. Agreed. My report was not a “thorough examination of WWE’s Talent Wellness Program.” Here’s what it WAS about … McMahon’s critics for months have been circulating a January, 2009 letter from U.S. Congressman Henry Waxman, D-California, one of the lawmakers who spearheaded the reviews of steroids in baseball. Waxman also reviewed WWE’s steroid policies following the high-profile, 2007 death of WWE wrestler Chris Benoit, found them lacking, and in his letter last year urged the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy to investigate. I reported that ONDCP never took any action and lawmakers, including Waxman, failed to further pursue the matter. To this day Waxman’s office has not returned my calls requesting a reaction to the news ONDCP did not follow through on his request. I’ll argue it is responsible journalism when I’m handed a Congressional letter asking for an investigation and report that investigation never occurred.

2. Waxman issued his letter on Jan. 2, 2009. WWE has had over one year to, if the company so desired, craft a point-by-point rebuttal. And McMahon has been on the campaign trail since last September knowing full well that her critics would dredge up the issue of steroids and, in all likelihood, the Waxman letter. This is not an issue that suddenly popped up out of nowhere and completely caught WWE or the McMahon campaign off guard. If such a point-by-point rebuttal of Waxman’s concerns exists, none was provided for my story.

3. Waxman arrived at his conclusions not after reviewing the WWE’s wellness/steroids policies on its website, but after his bi-partisan staff held closed-door interviews with key WWE officials, including doctors overseeing the program, Linda McMahon, her husband Vince and daughter Stephanie. If WWE wants to make all of those same individuals available for one-on-one interviews with myself so they have the opportunity to thoroughly explain the facts and how Waxman got them wrong, as well as answer any other questions I might have, just name the time and the place. I’ll work around your far-busier-than-mine schedules. If WWE is arguing it is unfair for me to report about Waxman’s concerns without performing my own thorough review of the steroids program, the company needs to offer me the same opportunities as Waxman. Visiting the company’s website isn’t quite the same as sitting across the table from Vince McMahon.

4. Neither Zimmerman nor the McMahon campaign have accused me of this, but in case their supporters/fans believe I’m in the tank for the Democrats or former Congressman Rob Simmons, who is vying with McMahon for the GOP nod and tearing into the steroids issue, I’d urge them to read this.