The great debate over the future of Title IX is now in the hands of (gasp! choke! oh hell and damn!) politicians.

But maybe there's good news. Maybe if we get to the point of public hearings, some eager young politician with a thirst for the limelight will call Laila Ali to testify.

	Wonder how George W. Bush and his fellow proponents of Title IX would fare against Laila Ali in the boxing ring?

One eager young butt-kicking later, maybe he'll see the error of his ways.

Ali, the women's heavyweight champion of the world, or at least what passes for it in the still-nascent world of women punching each other for amusement, was not a direct beneficiary of Title IX, of course. Title IX, as we all know from our reading, is all about opportunity and funding for women's college sports, and unless we've missed a school here or there, there is no NCAA women's boxing team.

Yet.

But there is a causal link that goes beyond some athletic director's issues with spreading his school's money around. Laila Ali got to hit people in the face for cash because Title IX made it OK for girls in sports to become women in sports, and boxing, like it or not, qualifies as sports.

And why? Because while Laila Ali could have gotten into boxing because of her father's influence alone, she would have run out of opponents a hell of a lot faster without Title IX.

Maybe we are empowering Title IX beyond its mandate here, and maybe you think this is the proof that Title IX actually went too far. I mean, women's boxing?

But the answer to that question is, in fact, women's boxing. Above and beyond all the ridiculous myths about how Title IX shreds men's sports, there is this simple truth -- women, like men, get to decide if they want to expend all the sweat and other resources they use while learning how to dribble with their left hand, left foot, getting the first serve in, making the turn in the 50 freestyle or spotting the jab.

That, kids, was the whole point of Title IX. They just used the bookkeeping to make it all legal.

But enough of this tedious pedantry. You're not wasting company time reading another turgid defense of Title IX. You want something more than the standard Charlie Rose interview. You want big fun, and we're here to advocate it.

We want to see Laila Ali pop a senator in the mush, either to advance the cause of equality of opportunity for women, or just to see a congressman's face swell up like a poisonous Brazilian toad.

Anyone got a problem with that?

Ali may have the most persuasive case, after all, because the recidivists on Title IX aren't going to be persuaded by arguments of mere fairness or logic. They may keep waving the carcasses of dead men's sports teams, but the tie to Title IX can only be made through the athletic directors who actually did the cutting of those sports. They put up Title IX as a cover, and some people bought it.

Well, that's how this stuff works. Perception is reality, and far more often than anyone wants to admit. If you can convince someone that you did something they don't like because some higher power made you do it, maybe you can redirect the scorn, if not the lawyers.

But let's talk about perception and reality, and how they can be merged inside a six-ounce leather glove. We as sports fans, consumers and occasional viewers of C-SPAN (especially after the latest episode of "The Oblongs" end) see no particular obstacle to Laila Ali making her case in the best way she knows how.

There is, after all, something profoundly annoying about re-fighting a battle that was long ago settled. The notion of endless struggle is a little too Maoist for us, although we do make exceptions for the NBA All-Star Game. We've already done the Title IX fight, and whether you use the troubled economy, the troubled accounting profession or the troubled athletic director trying to fill a 10-pound bag with eight pounds of cash, this one shouldn't be re-fought.

But if you have to re-fight it, who better than a fighter to do the job?

I mean, that's a hearing we'd all watch, no matter what side we're on.

Ray Ratto is a columnist with the San Francisco Chronicle and a regular contributor to ESPN.com