Are you kidding me? Could the feds look any more foolish? Untold millions of dollars have been spent on the George Mitchell report (in which Clemens is named 82 times) and an exhaustive investigation that involved 103 law enforcement people, five lawyers and 72 investigation locations. And the prosecutor gets his clocked cleaned by Roger’s rube attorney, Rusty Hardin?
This is an absolute joke. Clemens voluntarily went before Congress in 2008, unleashed a stream of whoppers that would have made any polygraph explode, and got slapped with a perjury indictment. It’s all erased now because the boobs in the prosecutor’s office showed the jury some video of Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) referring to former Yankees pitcher Andy Pettitte’s recollection of conversations with Pettitte’s wife, Laura. Suddenly, Hardin looks like the smartest guy since dumb-like-a-fox Joe Pesci fooled ’em all in “My Cousin Vinny.’’
Roger, Rusty, Deb, the K-kids, the Hendricks Brothers and Roger’s pals must be having a good laugh over this one. The feds were foiled in the Barry Bonds trial, but at least they came away with one guilty count of obstruction of justice. This time, they came away with nothing but abject embarrassment and the wrath of the nation’s taxpayers.
You should be infuriated. I am. A lot of sports fans were opposed to this trial on the grounds that it was a waste of money. You know the argument - “who cares if Roger cheated and lied? That was a long time ago. He’s a baseball player. He’s not a threat to society.’’
I was in the other corner, defending the feds. I wanted to see Clemens stand trial and try to explain how he could stand on front of Congress with such defiance in the face of so much contrary evidence. Ballplayers and sports executives routinely lie to the media and it doesn’t really matter. But I shared the naive opinion that it’s not OK to lie in front of Congress or grand juries. The American system needs to be protected from blatant abuse of sworn testimony. It also seems like a good idea to remind young people that it’s not OK to take performance-enhancing drugs to advance in your sport of choice. I’m one of those suckers who believes in a level playing field.
