Specter begins investigation into National Spelling Bee

WASHINGTON, D.C. — On May 30^th, in front of a live TV audience, Sameer Mishra took home the top honors at the 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee by correctly spelling the word “guerdon.”

Now, more than two weeks after the victory, Senator Arlen Specter has launched an official investigation of Mishra and second-place finisher Sidharth Chand, who succumbed to “prosopopoeia” in the 15^th round of play. As the investigation begins, Specter released a statement to the press concerning the issue.

“Today myself and my staff have commenced our inquiry into the results of this year’s Scripps National Spelling Bee. I expect the results to be published in approximately six months, when we have had ample opportunity to interview the contestants and families, as well as check for significant increase in muscle tone and decrease in testicle size,” Specter’s statement read. “We will not, naturally, be checking for testicle problems in the females. But they didn’t really do that well anyway – so we figure if they cheated, just let them have it.”

According to Specter, the inquiry follows an alarming rise in parental complaints to congress over irregularities in the Spelling Bee’s progression of difficulty. Many people, for example, found Justin Song’s jump from “duroc” in round six to “trophallactic” in round seven to be highly suspect.

“The gap between five letters and thirteen letters is a lot – eight, in fact – and we did think Justin looked a little bloated out there,” Specter told SSNN in a phone interview. “Then in round nine, Scott Remer nailed ‘ranunculaceous.’ In my opinion, this is just too reminiscent of Barry Bonds hitting a bases-clearing double in a tie game – how could your mind not immediately jump to performance enhancers of some kind? We’ve got our work cut out for us, and we hope that everyone will fully cooperate.”

Specter says that he and his staff will work backwards through all rounds of play – including, if necessary, the quarterfinals, and even the qualifiers – to determine whether any contestants engaged in illegal performance enhancement.

When asked directly whether PEDs might have tainted past Spelling Bee finals, Specter would only say that the Bee, “isn’t the NBA. Our suspicions have never been confirmed. But ‘euonym,’ back in 1998 – that did sorta reek of bullshit.”

It’s going to be tough for this sport to sweep any nations, but it’s still pretty frickin’ cool!