Friday, August 20, 2010

Rocket Rage

I was going to write about Roger Clemens' indictment for perjury, but I see my friend, baseball fanatic Matt Welch, beat me to it:

This marks the second time the federal government has charged a famously unlikable Hall of Fame-caliber baseball player not with any underlying crime [...] but for [...] lying under oath to people more powerful than they. Quite openly, and at great taxpayer expense, the government is trying to make examples out of showhorse athletes, preferably of the assholish variety.

I sometimes think it would be best if Congress never called celebrities before their committees.  Politicians often showboat, and hearings that get extra attention for irrelevant factors bring out the worst in them.

4 Comments:

Blogger QueensGuy said...

So now we'll have excluded the all time hits leader, all time home runs leader and all time Cy Young awards winner from the HOF. Neat.

By the way, the line about "people more powerful than they" is a bit of hyperbole. It's the same crime if he lied to a rookie FBI special agent.

2:51 AM, August 20, 2010  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Actually this kind of crime does the nearly impossible- makes Roger Clemens seem sympathetic. (It does thew same thing for the Illinois yoyo- Blago only convicted of lying to the FBI) The focus gets shifted from supposed crimes to prosecutorial overreach and the realization that they can basically get anybody for anything.

6:29 AM, August 20, 2010  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Time for everyone to take the fifth.

9:31 AM, August 20, 2010  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"who cares if he lied to Congress- how nothing ever happens to them when they lie to us...."

-A variation of which was heard on 100 sports talk shows this weekend

8:18 AM, August 21, 2010  

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