No, that argument still begs the question of which things to address because what’s serious to you may not be serious to me. So, taken to its logical extreme, disagreeing with the choice to go forward on Clemens does not necessarily mean that we should address only the most serious crimes.

yea they need to jump of clemens sack and let him live…. all this steroids allegations is BS anyway ….I say let them run the risk of messing their bodies up …it makes the game more interesting more amazing stuff happens with people who may be on the juice…baseball can be boring at times it needs some excitement on the field and no drama off the field

Congress, the knaves and fools that they are, certainly have the discretion to refer the matter for further investigation. The correct question however, which you identified, is whether this exercise of discretion was a wise one.

It all reminds me of the traffic stop scenario. Everything in a cop’s training tells him or her to keep it simple, to keep a traffic summons in perspective and not let it escalate. Write the ticket, be professional and get it over with. The driver is not a bad guy, he’s a citizen. Don’t give him an opportunity to be a bad guy by failing to control yourself and the situation properly.

Cops expect that a certain number of drivers will react badly and be insulting and uncooperative and lie, lie, lie about the infraction. “No, I didn’t know my tail light, headlight, turn signal was out. No, I wasn’t speeding.”

The driver’s denial of doing something illegal, denying that he was speeding or that he made an illegal turn or lying about vehicle equipment, doesn’t result in a perjury charge even though the driver is fairly obviously contradicting a lot of proof.

With all due respect to Congress, Novitsky and the rest of the Feds, Roger got his speeding ticket by being named in the Mitchell report. Lots and lots of other speeders got away with doing 75 in a 55 zone. It’s bad form to now heap more on Roger’s head just because he is fighting the ticket.

Congressmen/women think he lied to them. There is no higher crime in the land than lying to Congress — that is, if you’re one of the self-important buffoons who sits in Congress. It’s practically a capital felony to lie to Congress, no matter how trivial the matter you’re alleged to have lied about. (See Clinton, William Jefferson). McNamee got off (of this one, anyway) because he groveled. So did Andy. So did Knoblauch. Eat humble pie and make your sacrifice to the Gods of Hubris and move on. Roger, bless his headstrong soul, even tried to argue with Waxman during the closing statement. Trying to make the chairman of the committee look bad. Not smart. Even Tom Davis signed off on this investigation, which surprised me given his performance in the hearing. Roger would have done far better to have considered the lineup and their approach to hitting, as he has done thousands of times before, before trying to throw his fastball by them. They know how to hit that pitch.

Weiner is showing perspective, and it stands out because of its rarity. Poor guy probably stands no chance of reelection.

thanks, man.

The Attorney General should put a very high bar in place before he green lights any more products of this cottage industry Novitsky and the others have made out of steroids/BALCO case spinoffs.

The Feds are known for exotic or boutique cases. Once they understand how to make the case, they take the pattern and try to make as many more of them as they can before someone stops them or they run out of viable high profile targets. Usually when the evidence starts to get thin, one case goes too far on too little proof, they lose it and then suddenly they’re not so hot to make them any more and move on to the next “priority.”

This isn’t like the war on organized crime or war on drugs or war on terrorism. The Feds know that. This little infatuation with steroids cases will run its course and something else will be the flavor of the month. How soon I don’t know.

But I do see differences between the Bonds case and the Clemens case, starting with the lack of positive blood tests for Roger and the fact that Bonds failed at least one test and played games with his immunity agreement. We’ll see what happens.