When Congress wastes time talking to Roger Clemens, the terrorists win.
This is the first in what is a short series of posts about the Roger Clemens saga.
Did that really just happen? Did Congress really just waste a whole day talking to some guy who plays baseball and his former trainer? Seriously? Do they really have nothing better to do? Glad we were able to get all of those health care/unemployment/immigration/homelessness/education problems out of the way.
And what did we learn from this wasted day? Well…nothing. Clemens held to his usual line of thinking: “I am Roger Clemens, I can do no wrong, everybody else in the world has taken HGH (my wife and good friend Andy Pettitte included) except for me.” Brian McNamee was pretty consistent as well: “I’ve done a lot of bad things. One of them was giving Roger Clemens steroids. It’s time for the truth to come out.” Yeah…it was basically four hours of that, with some additional yelling by some members of congress and some attempts by Roger Clemens to take control of the situation (which was a hilariously bad idea, especially when Congressmen Waxman had to “put him in check”).
So, going forward, what happens now? Well, it looks like the Roger Clemens Perjury Extravaganza! will be starting sometime before 2008 is over, doesn’t it? The one thing that everybody (Congress, Clemens, Clemens lawyers, McNamee) agreed on is that Andy Pettitte is a truthful person. Seeing as how his deposition stated that Clemens took steroids, and Clemens statements today and previously are in direct conflict…well, that sort of implies that Clemens might be telling a small fib, or two. Clemens seemingly had no defense for Pettitte’s statements, resorting to using the word “misremembered”, which was clearly the word of the day. Clemens lack of defense for Pettitte’s statement, combined with McNamee’s testimony and possibly his evidence, (honestly, how crazy was McNamee to have syringes and gauze and stuff all these years later?) do not bode well for Clemens. But his main problem was touched upon by ESPN legal analyst Lester Munson,
The problem for Clemens is that Debbie Clemens’ use of HGH came two years after Clemens’ conversation with Pettitte. And, as Waxman explained, that means Clemens “made untrue statements in his deposition [sworn testimony to the committee last week].”
So might Clemens be in trouble for perjury? Yes, its likely that there will at least be further investigation into the issue. 
While that’s great that Congress may have caught Clemens in a lie, the question still remains…Why was he in front of Congress in the first place? If Roger Clemens wasn’t a baseball player, and a case was brought before him stating that he may have used illegal drugs…well, he’d be arrested and tried in a court of law. Being tried in court would allow Clemens to face his accusers (namely Andy Pettitte in this case, who would have to be cross-examined by Clemens’ lawyers) and it would be more than likely that a trial would result in some sort of closure in this case; guilty or innocent, that’s definitely more closure than what we had today. Now, do I think this trial would turn out well for Clemens? No, I think he’s guilty…but therein lies my point; Clemens deserves the right to properly state his case and question his accusers. He is supposed to be “Innocent until proven guilty, in a court of law”. The present situation has him “Guilty until proven innocent in front of Congress”.
It was the wrong venue, and it was a waste of time.
Look for the next post in the series tomorrow.
ESPN: Going forward, questions will focus on Clemens more than McNamee
This entry was posted on Thursday, February 14th, 2008 at 1:23 am and is filed under Baseball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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Great title. Great post. 100% agreement. The nation took one giant step backwards yesterday. There should be more shame cast over this than the country’s fascination with Britney.
I like when one congressperson/admirer held up four pictures of Clemens from four different years after he already had been doing ‘roids. It’s like looking at the Wolfman two hours after sunset, then later at midnight. Yeah, he looks the same, but not normal.
This post title is outstanding.