Interesting rant

[Cannon Shell]

January 5, 2008, 02:52 PM ET
Utterly F***ing Ridiculous.


by Gary Huckabay

The House Oversight Committee has summoned several players and former players, including Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte, to testify before the committee.
All this time, I thought there was a writer’s strike. But surely, this has to be fiction, right? Pakistan is teetering on the brink of chaos. The economy’s fragile at best, plagued by fear, uncertainty, and doubt, both on the business and consumer side. Oil’s at $100 a barrel. We’ve got nearly 200,000 troops deployed and in harm’s way around the world. The federal debt is to the point where it’s about to grow by a digit — which would be its 14th.

So, facing these, and lots of other issues that face the citizenry, Henry Waxman and crew have decided to spend their time, their staff’s time, and, unfortunately, our time, by grilling a bunch of ballplayers about whether or not they used substances to enhance their play on the field.

Let’s stipulate to a couple things, just as part of a thought experiment. Let’s say that all the players are guilty. Of everything any has in the back of their mind. Dianabol Smoothies. HGH facial wraps. Testosterone-injecting parties that make the party scene in ‘JFK’ seem like a Sunday afternoon at Orrin Hatch’s house. Let’s go further. Let’s say that these ballplayers are making personal visits to high schools across the nation, speaking to classrooms every day with the central message of “Steroids worked for me! And now I’m a Hall of Fame ballplayer, rolling in cash, and tapping tail that would make Brad Pitt and Jay-Z genuflect before me.” At the end of each speech, players pass out samples of D-Bol and HGH, and some delicious fruit roll-ups, laced with ‘The Clear’.

That still wouldn’t warrant this kind of treatment. Waxman and his committee are displaying the basest kind of vile pandering, willing to do anything for a few minutes in front of a live camera with an opportunity to wag their atherosclerotically clubbed fingers in righteous anger. We’re talking about small widgets in a small business, that’s already done a hell of a job cleaning up their act, if you actually look at the numbers.

And before anyone gets the idea of writing me with yet another ironically juvenile “What about the children?!?!?!?” diatribe…piss off. The children are at far greater risk from the advertisement barrages that bracket innings within the game. No six year old should know who the hell Spuds MacKenzie or the Budweiser frogs are. Let’s tally up the damage to children from steroids compared to alcohol, shall we? Selective protection of the young teaches hypocrisy.

This whole issue is bulls–t, and everyone, in their heart of hearts, knows it. The collective societal masturbation on this issue is something out of Ionesco, and the number of whorish sell-outs who should resign in disgrace is climbing faster and more brazenly than Barry Bonds‘ HR totals ever did.

Don’t sit idly by and accept this miserable performance from Congress. Make a call. Drop an e-mail. Better yet, write a letter. Good Lord, if me or anyone else did their jobs in a similar fashion, we’d be justifiably terminated in nothing flat.