Congress Strikes Out in Baseball Probe

Rep. Henry Waxman stuck his bulbous nose into baseball Wednesday in what was clearly a made-for-TV event:

Even before baseball great Roger Clemens raises his right hand and swears to tell the truth, it’s clear that his appearance before Rep. Henry A. Waxman’s House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will be a spectacle for the cameras that have crowded into the hearing room. What isn’t clear is that it will turn into a partisan slugfest.

After all, the long-awaited hearing seems to offer a high-profile opportunity for members of Congress to show that they can work together in a bipartisan way to accomplish something — even if that something is only a made-for-TV interrogation into whether trainer Brian McNamee did or did not shoot steroids and human growth hormones into Clemens’ naked backside.

It’s not to be.

From beginning to end, with a few exceptions, Democrats hammer away at Clemens for the numerous contradictions in his story while Republicans sing Clemens’ praises and bang away at McNamee, his accuser.

Isn't it interesting that Republicans and Democrats weren't even able to come together long enough to get the facts. Both sides had an agenda, and frankly, Rocket should have told them all to go to...well, you know. Congress has no business dragging a private citizen before the TV lights and berating him like that, no matter what he's done. It's an abuse of congressional power, but totally in keeping with Waxman and his band of ambulance chasers.

Whether Clemens misused steroids or not is not something that is the business of Congress. If laws were broken there are local authorities with the appropriate jurisdiction to handle it. The only purpose of today's hearing was to give Waxman and his cronies a chance to showboat on TV.