The Rocket In The Docket

Whoever is in charge of giving a story legs, thank you sooooo much for the current Roger Clemens steroid fiasco.

This thing is the gift that just keeps on giving.

First, Clemens and Andy Pettitte get outed for using illegal performance enhancers by their former trainer Brian McNamee in the Mitchell Report.

Then, giving tons of credibility to the charges that McNamee made in the report, Pettitte ‘fesses up and cops to having done exactly what McNamee said he did.

Then we get 24 days of utter silence from The Rajah, while every right-thinking person in the western hemisphere is wondering why it’s taking so long for him to respond…unless, of course, there is some truth to McNamee’s claim, in which case the time taken is being used to rev up the spin cycle.

While waiting for something, anything, from Clemens, this knucklehead releases a video to YouTube (!!), denying all charges. YouTube? YouTube??

What, the Weekly World News couldn’t squeeze him in under the banner headline about the two-headed cows being abducted by aliens? But wait…there’s more.

Sure enough, Clemens stages an “interview” on 60 Minutes that should have shamed the company that gave us Edward R. Murrow and investigative journalism. Had this sham been any more softballish, there would be a keg of beer at each base.

Next, we get a lawsuit (!!), where Clemens is suing McNamee for defamation of character. Just for kicks, I went to a legal website to read up on defamation of character, and the site was quick to advise that proving defamation is difficult under the best of circumstances, even if the defendant is lying. Basically, Clemens is trying to curry any public favor he can by saying, “See? I’m suing…” even though this kind of suit rarely pays off.

Finally, there’s this spurious “tape” that Clemens and his people have been playing, claiming that McNamee is recanting.

All of this, had it been done by itself, is enough to keep me writing for the next year…but it only gets better.

Like Doyle Brunson holding the case ace on a royal flush, McNamee’s lawyers have re-raised every time Clemens pushes into the pot because they know they are holding the best cards.

When Clemens went semi-public on YouTube, McNamee’s lawyers immediately called on him to meet the real press.

When Clemens denied having ever used steroids, McNamee’s lawyers double-dog dared him to make the same statements under oath.

When Clemens and his camp began running selected excerpts of this phone conversation to friendly media outlets, McNamee’s lawyers have rightly demanded that Clemens’ camp turn over the entire tape willingly…or, absent that, that the tape be subpoenaed into evidence.

See, here’s the point: no matter what Clemens “seems to” say, McNamee’s lawyers have responded aggressively and in a way that Joe Couch Potato can readily understand, because it makes sense.

Videos on YouTube? Try talking to a room full of ink-stained wretches that are smelling blood.

Namby-pamby denials and running your mouth to friendly interviewers? Try saying the same thing under oath, tough guy.

Oh, you have a tape? Great. Let’s all sit down and listen to the whole thing together, you, me, and a big ol’ press contingent, and lets see what’s really on that tape, J. Edgar…

Unless, of course, you have reasons for not wanting to meet with reporters in a genuine question-and-answer press conference…y’know, because they might ask you the kind of questions that Mike Wallace conveniently left out.

Questions like: so what’s on the whole tape?

What took you so long to respond?

Why have you responded like this?

Why did you need to get injected in your buttocks with lidocaine? Does numbing your butt help you pitch better?

Why did you need to get injected with B-12 at all? Seems to me that you get the same benefit from swallowing a completely legal and over-the-counter pill with B-12, like, say, a Flintstones Chewable…

And the real question, the one that Clemens absolutely cannot avoid:

Why would McNamee tell the truth about Pettitte and lie about you, especially since he had to know that to lie under those circumstances would lead to all kinds of nasty legal problems later…and especially since he didn’t have to say a stinkin’ thing?

The best part is yet to come. Clemens will have to face the music soon, and this time he will be under oath

It sez so right here that you will hear the finest parsing of the English language since William Jefferson Clinton debated what the definition of “is” is…

Stay tuned.

Better To Be Silent...

Just curious, but what the hell is R.L. White thinking?

For those who are unenlightened, R.L. White is the president of the Atlanta chapter of the N.A.A.C.P...and, in this scribe's mind, further evidence of how far this once-proud organization has fallen.

I mean, from W.E.B. DuBois to this?

White, speaking to reporters in the wake of Michael Vick's admission of guilt, made a series of statements in defense of Vick that demand a breathalyzer, at the very least.

For example: "...(W)e should join hands as a team, and recognize the fact that Mr. Vick is human. Humans make mistake (sic), but we maintain that he is a redeemable human."

A mistake?

Locking your keys in your car is a mistake.

Fumbling the football is a mistake.

Believing the Republicans will win the next presidential election is a mistake.

Planning, executing, and operating a dog-fighting operation for five years is not a mistake.

This was on purpose.

This was not a one-time incident, but a lifestyle that Vick would still be living had he not been discovered by authorities.

That bears repeating.

Michael Vick was killing dogs on his property as recently as April. That is not the evidence of a man who suddenly realizes the horrible direction that his life has taken, a man who truly repents in the biblical sense of the word, a man who turns away from his iniquity to take up a life completely different from the one he was leading.

That is the evidence of a man who was happy doing what he was doing, and who would still be doing it if he hadn't been caught.

But then, I shouldn't be surprised that the N.A.A.C.P. got it so horribly wrong. After all, their track record in the last 30 years hasn't exactly kept Dr. King's dream alive.

But it gets better.

Continuing their theme of victimization where there are no victims, White did his level best to portray Vick (!!) as the victim in all this.

"There are those who took exception to our characterization of “piling on,” or even later, uh, I used the term, uh, “lynching” of his, uh, personality by those who cried the loudest."

See, we might take exception to the term "lynching" because Michael Vick was not the one who got lynched figuratively, but was the one who did the lynching, literally, and he has admitted it.

That's the unalterable truth that even the blindfolded leaders of the N.A.A.C.P. just don't get: this is no longer the witch-hunt they've been looking for, nor is it the "techno-lynching" of the black male in the new millenium, nor has anyone fabricated any evidence or created charges out of whole cloth simply to bring him down. Michael Vick admitted that he fought dogs, killed dogs, and profited from the same.

Who is the victim here? The man who has admitted to a crime, or the dogs that he brutally killed?

But that's not the worst of it. White goes on to make the kind of statement that questions his grip on reality.

"The way he is being persecuted, he wouldn’t have been persecuted that much if he had killed somebody."

What the blue hell is he talking about?

Is he actually suggesting that Vick would have caught less flack if he'd killed someone?

I'd like to know what planet he was on when every media outlet known to man was covering the Ray Lewis fiasco, and Ray-Ray wasn't even the trigger man.

Better yet, he must have completely forgotten the firestorm that surrounded the Rae Carruth case, and Carruth failed in his attempt to kill his girlfriend and their unborn child.

Or maybe he's still a member of the O.J. Simpson fan club.

You'll remember O.J...the double murderer.

Was he sleeping through that entire year of 24-hour coverage and endless debate in print and electronic media?

Does he really believe that Vick would have gotten less attention than O.J. did, and Vick was the highest-paid player in the NFL at the NFL's most glamorous position?


My goodness, the only way Vick could have gotten more attention is if he'd murdered human beings the same way that he killed dogs.

Perhaps one of the best things about Vick's going to prison is that it will finally stop people from publicly making asses of themselves...

...and if it will shut up knuckleheads like R.L. White, I'll drive him to the prison myself.

Today.