Amongst the Slime: Rocket Roger Comes to Congress

February 15, 2008
By: Dave Zirin

Before we discuss any part of the Roger Clemens steroid kabuki theater, let's concede that there are only about 1,500 ways we can think of where the Government Oversight Committee's time could be better spent. This is Government Oversight, remember. That means they could be sending subpoenas to find out why  Bush and Friends are so keen on bugging our phones, or drilling in Alaska, or underfunding the VA. Hell, they could be holding hearings on how Bush got that black eye reaching for a pretzel a few years back. Anything, but this.

Representative Tom Lantos, Democrat of California, died this week at the age of 80. We remember Lantos for many things – not all of them admirable - but we remember him today as the man who gazed at the very first of these idiotic steroid hearings in 2005, and called it "a theater of the absurd." Roger Clemens's face-off with Congress Wednesday officially moved the discussion beyond the absurd and placed it squarely in Bush Country.

Before we discuss one word of Wednesday’s tax-funded idiocy at Rep. Henry Waxman's House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, let's concede that there are only about 1,500 ways that the committee's time could be better spent. They could be asking why the Bush Administration is so keen on bugging our phones, granting no-bid contracts to Dick Cheney's oily pals or why they're underfunding the Veterans Administration. Hell, they could subpoena Bush on how he got that weird black eye a few years back. Anything but this.

Virginia Republican Rep.Tom Davis--the guy with the pumpkin-colored hair--defended the idea of steroid hearings last month, saying, "This is one of the few things in a partisan, polarized town that the Republicans and Democrats are on the same page. It isn't on the budget or Iraq. But you've got to start somewhere."

Yet the anabolic circus was an absolute parade of partisanship. The positions of lawmakers on the dais seemed as hardened as those testifying. Clemens, under oath, declared that he had never taken steroids or human growth hormones. His ex-trainer Brian McNamee, a former cop, swears he did. So one person was lying, one was telling the truth, yet both presented to the camera fidgety faces of squirmy deceit. And we ask again, who cares? If steroid use is against the law, then let’s see them in court. Why are members of Congress so intently focused on whether abscesses on an All-Star ass could lead to a better earned-run average?

But the partisan lineup of majority Democrats going after Clemens and Republicans after McNamee made for bizarre political theater. While Democrats were calling Clemens a liar, Republicans like Chris Shays were shouting that McNamee was, of all things, trading in controlled substances. "You deal drugs!" the Congressman said. Yes, Chris. That's usually who testifies in drug cases.

The low point was when  Massachusetts Democrat Rep. Stephen Lynch questioned Clemens repeatedly about his anabolic tush abscesses, and Virginia’s Davis said angrily, “That gives new meaning to the term lynching.” If only Davis worked for the Golf Channel instead of Congress: he’d be looking for a job.

The question is why the partisan buffoonery. Clemens is a Republican with long-standing ties to the Bush family. During his testimony, Rocket Roger invoked some strange words of encouragement--"Stay high and keep my head up"--that the syntactically challenged George Herbert Walker Bush once gave him. Not the best choice of words at a hearing about drugs.

And the Bush patronage is likely to continue, even if Clemens eventually is charged with perjury as a result of his testimony. McNamee's lawyer Richard Emery today predicted a pardon from Bush the Younger: "It would be the easiest thing in the world for George W. Bush, given the corrupt proclivities of his administration to say Roger Clemens is an American hero, Roger Clemens helped children," Emery told the Associated Press. "It's my belief they have some reason to believe they can get a pardon."

Clemens is also bosom buddies his former boss, Houston Astros owner Drayton McClane, who has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to various Republican candidates. He is also tight Rangers owner Tom Hicks, the former chair of the Giuliani for President campaign. (There’s one for the resume).

Another priceless moment was when Clemens was taken to task on his blithe assertion that he hadn't used steroids, only B-12. Rep. Bruce Braley asked him if he had an approved medical reason for taking B-12, if he had been diagnosed with anemia, senile dementia or Alzheimer's, or whether he was a vegetarian or a vegan. The word "vegan" threw Clemens for a big loop. "I don't know what that is," Clemens replied. "I'm sorry." Roger’s idea of eating greens seems to end with moldy bread and lime jello.

He then, clearly getting a jump on Valentine’s Day, blamed his wife for keeping B-12 around the house to buff up for her appearance in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. But that wasn’t enough. Clemens also tossed dear old mom under the bus as well, saying. "My mother in 1988 suggested I take B-12," Clemens said. "I always assumed it was a good thing, not a bad thing."

Sounds like what a lot of people thought when the Democrats took over Congress.