The Congressional hearings featuring Roger Clemens and his former trainer Brian McNamee yesterday over-delivered in the best possible way.
Personally, after all the handshakes and smiles seen as Clemens stumped around Capitol Hill Monday, I had low expectations for the hearing. I flipped it on over my morning coffee (it was on live at 7 a.m.) out of mild curiosity and lack of interesting programming.
Much to my surprise, the committee was tough on Clemens. The questions were direct, and allowed Clemens little to no wiggle room to side-step them.
The best questioning of the day, and by far the most useful, came from Rep. Elijah Cummings. He was a singular voice of reason in the room and presented signed affidavits from Andy Pettitte and Clemens’ wife in regards to conversations between Clemens and Pettitte. Clemens couldn’t question Pettitte’s credibility, opting instead to insist that his former teammate and training partner either “misheard” or “mis-remembered” the conversations. Cummings was skeptical of the answer and said so in no uncertain terms.
“You said you were misunderstood. But all I’m saying is, it’s hard to believe. It’s hard to believe your story,” said Cummings. And then, in the closest he would get to pandering all day, “I hate to say that. You’re one of my heroes. But it’s hard to believe you.”
Second prize for actually holding the Rocket’s feet to the fire goes to Rep. John Tierney, though he ran into the problem a lot of sportswriters run into when interviewing athletes: Ask them one question (sometimes repeatedly) and they answer a different one.
Tierney pointed out instances in Clemens’ deposition where he contradicted himself in terms of conversations he had or didn’t have with McNamee about HGH. He asked Clemens how he reconciled the inconsistencies in his statements and Clemens stammered through some vague timeline of conversations that came no where near explaining the inconsistencies.
Eventually, Tierney gave up and moved on, but it was a nice try and a telling moment in terms of Clemens’ credibility.
But not all the congressmen were so apt in doing their jobs and maintaining the integrity of the hearing. The award for biggest butt-kisser of the hearing goes to Rep. William Lacy Clay, who provided the low point of the hearing and totally discredited the whole proceeding by serving up soft questions and finally, most embarrassingly, asking Clemens what uniform he was intending on wearing to the Hall of Fame.
At this point I was embarrassed for our whole system of governance, but those moments were few and far between. For the most part I was pleasantly surprised by the nature of the hearing. I believe the committee did well in setting up an official investigation of both Clemens and McNamee for perjury.
One of them is lying, and one will pay the price, and what started as a spectacle might end up in justice after all.
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