August 05, 2005

HARD WORKING CONGESSMEN TAKE UP THE CHALLENGE OF HUMAN NATURE, BASEBALL DIVISION

"Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But then I repeat myself."
--Mark Twain

        Horsefeathers certainly regrets the use of the drug du jour, steroids, by ballplayers, just as he regretted the past use of amphetamines, marijuana, uppers and downers of all kinds, including alcohol as stimulants to better performance. Just as he regretted the enormous quantities of aspirin he downed himself, each time he pitched a game in high school, and just as he regrets the shoulder pain that lingers 50+ years later. Just as we will regret,in the future, the new designer drugs now being developed. But then again, there are lots of things we regret about human nature and one of the least of them is the performance enhancing 'cheating' by ballplayers. Parenthetically, one of the great features of baseball is that it has its elaborate rules, but also acknowledges efforts to bend the rules---'stealing' bases is admired. Stealing signs is common. Trying to deceive the umpire is part of any good catcher's skills. Fielders routinely pretend to touch a base, hoping to gain a split second advantage. At least in the instances of steroid use so far exposed, the only actual physical risk is to the ballplayer. When human nature manifests itself in the form of millions of jihadis seeking to explode their way to utopia, we think that's what our government should be addressing. Instead, we have our representatives rushing for the TV cameras to denounce and threaten Rafael Palmeiro for lying about steroid use! We could use some of that fierce passion applied to Islamic jihadis, but that might be dangerous, so our spineless representatives look for easy targets. Their shameless posturing seems to confirm another of(see above) Mark Twain's observations: "There is no distinctly native American criminal class... save Congress."
        Tim Marchman, in our opinion, far and away the best baseball columnist currently writing, starts his column today with the question "Why should congress care?" and goes on to write: "The ongoing clown show that is the response of Congress and Major League Baseball to the game's steroids crisis reached a new low this week with the announcement that the Government Reform Committee, as part of a perjury investigation, requested documents relating to disgraced Orioles slugger Rafael Palmeiro's failed drug test, and that MLB and Palmeiro were complying with the groundless request.

"If we did nothing," Rep. Tom Davis, the committee's chairman, asked a reporter, "I think we'd look like idiots. Don't you?" The rejoinder writes itself."
See the rest here.