LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- U.S. politicians have hijacked the Olympic corruption crisis as a "soapbox" for their own political ends, an American member of the IOC charged Saturday.
Jim Easton, one of two U.S. delegates on the International Olympic Committee, suggested politicians were hypocrites for attacking the IOC and the way it operates."You talk about people in glass houses," Easton said. "Here we have our politicians who live daily with conflicts of interest criticizing us on the way we run our business. I think it's out of line."
Easton issued a stinging rebuke to Sen. John McCain and others who have condemned the IOC's handling of the Salt Lake City bribery case, the biggest scandal in the committee's 105-year history.
McCain, a Republican from Arizona, said the IOC's actions "fall far short of the reforms needed to bring transparency and accountability to the organization."
"What I'm afraid is that they're doing it for political advantage and not for the benefit of anybody except for themselves," Easton said. "They just get on a soapbox and preach their righteousness. I think they've got to look at themselves a bit, too.
"They don't understand what's going on with the Olympic movement. They take a few little sound bites and move out on those, but they don't seem to understand why the IOC is independent."
In other Olympics developments:
-- IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch admitted that he should have stepped down after the Barcelona Games in 1992.
"I always thought that the moment to go was after Barcelona, once that dream (to see the Olympics held in his native city) had been fulfilled," Samaranch said in an interview published Saturday in the Barcelona daily La Vanguardia.
"But there was an important stage to go through, the IOC centenary, and that took another four years. Then in 1997, I was convinced that I should continue."
Samaranch's comments come after he received a vote of confidence from IOC members to continue his mandate as president until 2001.
-- Samaranch will likely be asked to testify at Senate Commerce Committee hearings on the Olympics scandal, aides to Committee Chairman John McCain said.
In addition to Samaranch, the Senate Commerce Committee said it would seek testimony at the April 14 hearing from U.S. Olympic Committee officials and former Sen. George Mitchell, who led a special U.S. panel that recommended top-to-bottom reforms at the IOC, Reuters reported.
-- A Salt Lake radio personality has been warned for telling listeners they should sign false names on an anti-Olympic petition.
The attorney general's office issued a warning on Friday to KALL radio's Tom Barberi, telling him "encouraging people to sign a petition with a fake name is illegal."
Last month, Barberi jokingly told listeners to sign false names on a petition demanding that Utah taxpayers be protected from having to pay for the 2002 Winter Games if they finish in the red.
But Stephen Pace, who is circulating the petition, apparently didn't find Barberi's comments funny. Pace, who heads Utahns for Responsible Public Spending, filed a complaint with the lieutenant governor's office.
Palmer DePaulis, spokesman with the attorney general's office, said telling people to sign false names on a petition is a misdemeanor, although the office will not take action against the radio host.