Comments on East Coast Bias: Clemens Can't Be Convicted of Perjury - Even if He...

Supposedly the House Oversight and Government Refo...

2008-02-14T11:18:06.144-05:00

Supposedly the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee oversees federal drug policy, and steroids (but not legal HGH) are considered "drugs" under federal law. I think you'd be annoyed to see what kinds of things the House Committees hold hearings on, and how sparsely attended most of those actually are. This happened to be something of national interest (because it was a dog-and-pony show) so it got more attention.

If I were facing foreclosure, had a son in Iraq or were serving a six-year prison term for possession of crack, I'd be pretty annoyed.

So umm...I don't understand why Congress even care...

2008-02-14T11:14:26.952-05:00

So umm...I don't understand why Congress even cares about Steroids and cheating in sports. Don't they have more important things to take care of? What are they getting out of this assuming that they are just like every other politician.

The hearing was unnecessary as there was no decisi...

2008-02-14T10:58:53.882-05:00

The hearing was unnecessary as there was no decision to be made. If they really wanted to know about the accuracy of the allegations in the report they would have subpoenaed a whole slew of people named in the report along with Radomski. It's as if they accepted Radomski's allegations and only gave Roger some face time because he vehemently denied McNamee's statements. There's still no decision to be made based on McNamee and Clemens' testimony, whether truthful or not. I can't see how any of it is material to any decision.

Perjury is out of play because the Federal government does not bring high profile cases to lose.

The defamation suits, as far as we know, haven't even been served as of yet. I think it would be foolish for either side to serve them at this point, and if they have been served they would be better off dropping them on both sides. What Roger really can't afford right now is for a civil jury to decide there's a 50.1% chance that he's lying and award McNamee a large sum of money.

I understand that someone defending Clemens could ...

2008-02-14T09:03:29.523-05:00

I understand that someone defending Clemens could make the argument that there was no decision to influence, or that the only decision was to decide the accuracy of the Mitchell Report (in terms of, did McNamee say X and Y? Yes, he did). But by that interpretation, there was no reason to have a hearing. No one said that Sen. Mitchell misreported what he was told.

My understanding was that the decision being made was about the accuracy of the allegations made in the Mitchell Report, thus truly a hearing about the guilt or innocence of Roger Clemens.

This would be examined by the Committee as it attempts to decide whether or not the picture painted in the Mitchell Report is real, and therefore if steroid use is as rampant as the report leads us to believe. If there are major holes poked in the report, such as the number one snitch flat-out lied about one of the players in the report, then the whole report has to be questioned, and perhaps drug use is not as severe a problem as McNamee led us to believe.

I still think perjury is in play, personally. That does not mean I think he will be charged or convicted.

By the way, what happens if/when these defamation suits get started?