Steroids Debate Falls on Party Lines
CLEMENS
Union Leader
Matt Negrin
Boston University Washington News Service
13 February 2008
WASHINGTON — The investigation into professional baseball players’ illegal steroid use took on a new partisan tone Wednesday as Roger Clemens’s long-awaited congressional testimony garnered praise from Republicans but drew heated criticism from Democrats.
Clemens batted away allegations that he took human growth hormone from his former trainer, Brian McNamee, who sat two chairs away and claimed to have injected the drug into the pitcher at least 20 times.
The questions by the members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee centered on one seemingly obvious truth: One of the men must be lying. Many Democrats slammed Clemens for being untruthful in his deposition, while Republicans chastised McNamee for admitting he lied several times about his distributing human growth hormone, questioning his credibility.
Some members questioned why the hearing was being held at all, calling for the committee to shift its priorities from baseball to other domestic matters.
“I don’t believe that investigating Roger Clemens should be a top priority of the U.S. Congress,” Rep. Paul Hodes, D-N.H., a committee member, said in a statement after the hearing.
Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., also decried the hearing, which lasted nearly five hours, saying, “I really wish we could get back to what our job is, which is government oversight and reform.”
One of the most enraged Democrats was Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, who repeatedly demanded that Clemens acknowledge he was under oath. Cummings said it is “hard to imagine” that pitcher Andy Pettitte, who had been a Clemens teammate on the New York Yankees and Houston Astros, made up a story about speaking with Clemens twice about using human growth hormone. Clemens said his friend “misremembers” the exchange from years ago.
Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass., hammered the Rocket for telling the committee three times he never spoke with McNamee about human growth hormone, but then later admitted to two conversations. Tierney said Clemens had appeared just as “truthful” in his previous testimony as he did Wednesday.
On the GOP side, Foxx displayed four photos of Clemens pitching from the past 10 years in which he appears the same size in each picture, implying that he did not take steroids.
Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., blasted McNamee for telling “lie after lie after lie after lie” about his relationship with ballplayers. Shouting at the trainer, Burton called the fiasco “really disgusting” and ranted about a so-called “trial by media” that implicates Clemens.
After the hearing, Rusty Hardin, one of Clemens’s lawyers, told reporters, “I don’t really see it as a partisan breakdown.”
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