Remote patrol

If you watch only one hour of Olympic coverage this month, let it be tonight's "Investigative Reports" (9, A&E), which reviews the sordid, slimy misdeeds of the protection racket known as the International Olympic Committee. The special, co-produced with CBS News, tells the sad story of how some of the oft-frustrated backers of (or as former Salt Lake Mayor Ted Wilson puts it, "over-schmoozed") Salt Lake City bribed their way into the committee's inner circle and secured a 2002 Winter Games bid. But that, as we learn, is just the tip of the Rockies. For more than a decade the committee members have extorted free tuition, jobs and cash, even sexual favors from potential host cities. The world's foremost Olympics scandal scribe, Andrew Jennings, describes the committee as a pack of locusts and declares, "They are the most unaccountable organization in the world." My question is: What's the difference between what Salt Lake City did and what NBC did in forking over ungodly sums of cash to secure the exclusive Olympic telecast rights for the next decade? As the Los Angeles Times recently reported, the bid was noncompetitive; NBC locked up the rights without letting CBS or Fox submit a counteroffer. As "Survivor" star Rudy Boesch would say: Money talks. >>>