While I'm generally opposed to Congress sticking its nose into any of the steroids stuff, it's not like anyone can stop it from calling hearings as a part of its extremely broad powers to air the issues of the day for the public. Let it be, I say. But I get a little more irate when I read something like this:The congressional hearing featuring Roger Clemens and other Major League Baseball players named as steroid users in the Mitchell Report has been postponed until Feb. 13, according to a release by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The delay gives the committee time to coordinate its investigative efforts with the Justice Department, according to committee chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif), and time for federal authorities to meet with trainer Brian McNamee . . .
. . . One of McNamee's attorneys, Richard Emery, said there is no "stated agenda" for the meeting but they are expected to discuss Clemens' claims that McNamee lied about his steroid use to Mitchell and federal investigators.
If Congress is simply interested in airing the issues relating to steroids in baseball, they have no need to get involved with the who-lied-to-whom aspects of all of this before conducting hearings. That's what the defamation suit is all about. To the extent they are focusing all of this on whether McNamee or Clemens lied -- and only talking to McNamee's people about it beforehand -- Congress looks very much like its stepping into McNamee's shoes and conducting a deposition of Roger Clemens in their civil case.
Personally, I don't very much appreciate my tax dollars being used to subsidize the legal representation needs of private litigants. How about you?
5 comments:
Waxman is such a slimeball. He is the worst of all types of politicians. He showboats. He plays to the cameras. He does nothing of any real consequence for the American people. And for the small price of $250 dollars he is willing to talk to you in person (http://books.google.com/books?id=zocAptjbhmYC&pg=PA100&lpg=PA100&dq=waxman+neustadtl&source=web&ots=XYfWhUk4Jl&sig=B6STD976v0uiLvMIpKD0jRnVigg#PPA99,M1). He is the very essence of what is wrong with American politics.
I don't know if I'd go that far, dave -- oversight is important even if it isn't always popular -- but the name of his committee is "government oversight," not "oversight of private entertainment/athletic businesses that happen to be catching popular attention right now.
Getting involved in the steroids stuff in the first place is the granstanding and showboating you're talking about. Getting involved in a private lawsuit that spins out of it is patently ridiculous.
And taking the time to "investigate" that private matter is unnecessarily spending our money and wasting their time.
Why is this required or necessary? Someone please tell me.
Are you Art Garfamudis???? I didn't think you wrote on Page 2 . . .
Not Art. Did this come off like some reactionary sportswriter thing? I hope not, because I didn't intend it that way.
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