Congress Strikes Out

This week in Congress…

Former major league baseball player and 1998 hitting legend Sammy Sosa announced his retirement from professional sports two weeks ago, on June 3, 2009, after not actually playing for any major league team since the 2007 season.

If you actually care about Sammy Sosa and the several records he broke throughout his career, check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sammy_Sosa#Final_years_.282007-2009.29.

For those of us that care to hearken back to 2005, the year of Terry Schiavo, Sandra Day O’Connor’s retirement, William Rehnquist’s death (if you don’t know who either of the previous individuals are, I would appreciate it if you would stop reading this blog right now), Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s indictment, and Hurricanes Rita and Katrina, Congress decided that 2005 was a great time in history to hold hearings about steroid use in professional baseball.

And we wonder why New Orleans never totally recovered.

Yes, in 2005 Congress had nothing better to do than to call on the likes of Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Sammy Sosa, and others to testify about steroids. I’m sorry, not steroids, “performance enhancing drugs”.

On a total side-note, why are we picking on baseball players? Clearly, if anyone is using “performance enhancing drugs” it’s those guys who play football!

Back to the topic at hand: hearings were held, a conclusion was presumably reached (not that anyone heard it, or cared about it at all), and the U.S. Congress continued on its merry way of completely ignoring actual issues.

Four years later, and a mere two weeks after Sammy Sosa’s retirement, on June 16, 2009, it comes to light that two years before his testimony he tested positive for “performance enhancing drugs” and yet told congress that he would never take stuff like that! (For actual quotation and 6/16/09 NY Times article by Michael Schmidt go to http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/sports/baseball/17doping.html?fta=y.) GASP! I know, you’re shocked. I certainly was, at least for the five seconds that I cared.

Congress, on the other hand, can they let it go? Can they let bygones be bygones and focus on, oh I don’t know, the worst economic crisis to hit the U.S. in my lifetime? How about the war in Iraq that we are still fighting for some reason? What about this health care reform thing that I keep hearing about?

Instead, “The Oversight and Government Reform Committee always takes seriously suggestions that a witness misled the committee while testifying under oath,” Edolphus Towns, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said in a statement. “Investigators will begin a review of this matter and, upon learning the results, I will determine appropriate next steps.” (from 6/17/09 NY Times article by the expert, Michael Schmidt, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/18/sports/baseball/18doping.html?_r=1&ref=sports)

Will someone please tell me why The Oversight and Government Reform Committee is trying to reform baseball instead of the Government?