There it was in the afternoon headline, "Roger Clemons is Indicted on Perjury Charges."
The ex-pitcher was indicted by a Justice Department ordered grand jury for purportedly lying under oath to Congress over his alleged use of steroids.
Based on testimony by others connected with the game, in all likelihood, Clemons probably used steroids on himself and if DNA testing of purported needles that were injected into him is confirmed"well it's probably case closed.
That will confirm that he lied under oath is his testimony before Congress and was the reason this whole thing was turned over to the Justice Department. So if convicted on the perjury charges he'll probably get some jail time.
But really, is this what the Justice Department should be focusing on?
Let's consider; there have been some pretty heinous decisions made by some really bad people and as a result of those decisions other people were killed, maimed and tortured. Many people lost their job, had their home foreclosed on and are now destitute primarily because of the greed and deceptive practices initiated by the felonious decisions made by these self proclaimed "masters of the universe."
The Bush/Cheney mob perpetrated an illegal war on Iraq based on lies and deception. They were the ones that authorized the use of torture. That preemptive war which was initiated when there was no imminent threat to the U.S. was in violation of the U.N. Charter to which the U.S. is a signatory. Torture is an internationally recognized atrocity, a crime against humanity, to which they have not been held to account. Why have they not been indicted for these criminal acts, lying to Congress and more so lying to the people of the United States?
What of the aforementioned high fliers on Wall Street and related financial industry culprits that perpetrated the worst financial crisis since the Depression which directly resulted in the present economic calamity; why have they not been indicted?
Why weren't any of the BP officials indicted for their negligence in creating the worst ecological disaster in the Gulf? Why haven't the government officials of the Minerals Management Service been indicted for failing to require BP (and the other oil behemoths drilling in the Gulf) to secure the required permits before getting the approval to drill. What of the alleged accusations made by staff scientists and engineers that they were pressured by their MMS officials to change their findings if they predicted that an accident was likely to occur or they raised concerns about the safety and environmental impacts of the drilling proposals they reviewed? There is some direct culpability here that is being ignored. Why has that been allowed to happen?
Getting back to Clemons, what he did (beyond the alleged perjury) was to inflict harm to himself for using steroids). Nobody else got hurt by what he did.
Maybe this writer is being an apologist and maybe there's a bigger picture being missed. But the use of steroids and then lying about it by an ex baseball player (even to Congress) is a petty sideshow and not worth the time and energy of the Justice Department.
Steroids in baseball tarnish its image. Baseball is a game, a diversion. In the course of things it is insignificant and so is Roger Clemons.
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