The NYT is reporting that House Oversight and Government Reform chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) is already regretting yesterday's hearings on drugs in professional sports, which degenerated from a generic waste of Congress' time into a nationally televised partisan catfight. Although the players involved were all deposed by Committee staff, Roger Clemens' lawyer insisted on having his client testify under oath in front of cameras on a national stage...for no reason? Quoth the Waxman:
Shocking! Partisanship in the House of Representatives!
While we're at it, has someone checked Bill Belichick's voter registration yet? Someone might have to warn Arlen Specter to lay off the guy. Also, is there something about professional sports in Boston that compels people to cheat?
"I'm sorry we had the hearing. I regret that we had the hearing. And the only reason we had the hearing was because Roger Clemens and his lawyers insisted on it."
You caught that, right? He insisted on the hearing. Anyone who has watched enough Law and Order knows that the last thing 90% of the bad guy's lawyers want is to have their client get up and testify so they can get torn apart by Sam Waterston. They always try and get the confession or the bloody gloves or the gun thrown out by the judge, but they lose and have to come up with some kind of insanity defense. Standard L&O plot twist, right?
Well, this was on TV, but Dick Wolf didn't produce it. Still, there was a plot twist and an insanity defense...that left to their own devices, most lawmakers will just start throwing mud at each other. Money quote:
And it was out in the open that it became Democrat against Republican. Waxman said he was shocked at the partisan nature of the hearing, with Democrats, for the most part, grilling Clemens while Republicans lambasted McNamee. "I was disappointed to see that kind of partisanship, and I can't understand it," Waxman said.
So, apparently Roger Clemens' party identification has something to do with whether or not he used steroids, since, I assume in the minds of many Republican Committee members, only Democrats use drugs, right? It really didn't matter that during the depositions Clemens' trainer pretty much admitted that the Rocket was using dirty fuel. The 11th commandment, right? These guys really think that Ronald Reagan would consider "speaking ill of a fellow Republican" to include calling a baseball player out as a drug cheat and a fraud.
Let me get this straight: Only two of the GOP members actually READ THE DEPOSITIONS? What do we pay them for, then? If you don't want to read transcripts, don't serve on an investigative Committee. And if you haven't read the transcripts, don't just go defend a Republican for the sake of defending the Republican. Americans like their baseball more than their partisanship. Did anyone else watch the hearings? Clemens was obviously lying. His own trainer was admitting misdeeds, while Clemens was accusing the trainer of lying. Why would someone say that he actually committed a crime? Does. Not. Compute. But still, House GOP'ers love to defend Republican Baseball types who won't accept responsibility for mistakes...sounds like a former owner of the Texas Rangers, maybe? Anyone?Waxman said Davis and Mark Souder of Indiana were the only Republicans on the committee who actually read through the depositions that were filed last week. Souder was also one of the few committee members who refused Clemens's request for a private meeting before the hearing. And it was Souder who stood out from his Republican colleagues by stating during the hearing that the depositions were "fairly devastating" against Clemens.
"I don't think, quite frankly, that they anticipated quite the solid wall on the Republican side, the defense of Clemens," Souder said on Wednesday of the Democratic members of the panel. Speaking of Clemens, he added, "It wasn't an accident that word got to me that he's a Republican, or he said that President Bush called him."
The Patriots "genius" coach and the Red Sox (sometimes) ace are unmasked within 24 hours of each other. How do you like that? By the way, if you're on the west coast, you're not off the hook, either. Didn't this all start with Barry Bonds and BALCO? Yeah, take that San Francisco.
[Update 12:08am - Reuters reports that Barry Bonds tested POSITIVE for Steroids BEFORE breaking his Home Run record. ]
And to top this all off, it's a good thing this was on C-SPAN3, because had it been broadcast on the networks, there were enough mentions by lawmakers of references in the depositions to Roger Clemens buttocks that the FCC would impose such high fines against Congress that there would be problems with the next Iraq supplemental.
Hmmm...
