I don't know about you, but there's nothing I like better than seeing my federal tax dollars at work.  That's why I was so excited to turn on the TV Wednesday and watch members of Congress spend an entire day delving into one of the most important global issues our country faces today: whether or not one grown man injected another grown man in the ass with performance-enhancing drugs.

It's good to know that our elected federal public officials understand what's important.  For a little while, I was worried that they might get distracted by things like the war in Iraq, the mortgage crises or the downturn in the economy, but luckily for us, they were able to see right through all those trivial, inconsequential issues and get right to the pressing matter of the day: Did Roger Clemens get shot in the ass by Brian McNamee?

If you're ever searching for a reason why Al Qaeda hates us, look no further than Wednesday's proceedings.  First, we have elected members of our federal government engaging in a day-long hearing to determine whether a professional athlete took performance-enhancing drugs.  In case that didn't resonate with you the first time, let me try one more time.  Our FEDERAL GOVERNMENT has marshaled significant resources - resources paid for with your and my tax dollars - for the purpose of determining whether a guy who throws a small ball very hard, strictly in order to entertain the American public, took steroids.  And the hearing was only a fraction of the time and energy put into this circus.  Congressmen and their aides spent weeks preparing for the hearing, poring over the Mitchell Report like it contains the secret to securing the next alternative energy source instead of accounts of which baseball player got juiced up and when.  I know it may not be fashionable for a guy who writes a blog that more or less dedicates itself to a discussion of all things sports to say that we may be putting a little too much importance on professional sports in this country, but a four and a half hour congressional hearing on whether Roger Clemens injected steroids in his rump?  C'mon.

Only slightly more embarrassing than the fact that there was a congressional hearing about this to begin with is the fact that the hearing itself got more media coverage than the first moon-landing.  I'm not sure which is more disturbing - the fact that Congress wasted tax dollars to deal with this in the first place, or the fact that so many people actually seem to genuinely care about it.  They could announce a cure for AIDS tomorrow and put on a four and a half hour press conference and it wouldn't get half the coverage that Roger Clemens' ass got on Wednesday.  It was on every channel.  It was even on MSNBC.  I couldn't figure out why, since MSNBC is a financial channel, but then it struck me that maybe the volume of Winstrol-V that Brian McNamee injected into Clemens has a direct impact on our financial markets.

Personally, I could give a shit whether Roger did steroids or not.  If you don't police these guys, and Major League Baseball did not, then they're going to do whatever they can to get and keep an edge.  The stark reality is that there's too much money at stake to think that they're going to take the high road.  What's unfortunate is that in this country, we tend to operate at extremes when it comes to public figures.  For too many people, a clean Roger Clemens equals an American hero, and a steroid-injected Roger Clemens equals an American disgrace.  This entire investigation takes on air of extreme importance, because for many, it will determine Roger's fate in their eyes as either a hero or a disgrace.  But what these people fail to understand is that Roger Clemens never has been, and never will be, an American hero or an American disgrace, regardless of the outcome of the investigation.  And that's because he's just an athlete who throws a ball really fast, which isn't enough to qualify him for either of those labels.

I have to admit that in spite of my skepticism regarding the need for the proceeding and my general lack of interest in whether or not Roger was juiced, the hour that I caught in order to provide a report to the SportDork Nation (I do it all for you guys) was riveting - and full of highly pertinent information.  Here are some of the things I discovered:

Medical records indicate that Roger had a bruise on his right buttock, and this bruise showed up around the time that McNamee claims he injected Roger with drugs.  There was much speculation regarding this bruise.  While I was watching, there were at least fifteen minutes of discussion about this bruise.  In fact, it may not have even been a bruise.  It might have been an abscess.  This was a question of great debate.  Was it a bruise, or was it an abscess?  There were conflicting medical reports.  One doctor said it was just a bruise, the other said it was an abscess.  One said it was an infected injection site, one said it wasn't.  I was on the edge of my seat.  So many doctors, so many medical reports.  Roger admitted it was an injection site, but said he was getting B-12 injections.  (I know that's where I get my "B-12" injections.) Was it B-12, or was it STEROIDS???  I also learned that apparently nobody has any idea what color the stuff was that was injected into Roger.  McNamee said it was Winstrol-V, which is a chalky white, and Roger said it was B-12 and was "pinkish" in color.  After much talk about the condition of Roger's right buttock and the color of various legal and illegal substances, the Congressmen were unable to come to any kind of resolution.  So, Roger's butt bruise remains a mystery - for now.

And was Roger at Jose Canseco's house for a party or wasn't he?  If you forget for a minute that whether or not Roger was at Jose's party is totally irrelevant to anything having to do with whether or not McNamee injected him sixteen times with steroids (because the injections didn't occur at Jose's party), this entire discussion was great stuff.  As someone who has a little bit of background in the law, it's always highly entertaining when you get to watch someone (in this case a Republican Congressman) take a possible inconsistency (whether Roger was at Jose's party) that is totally irrelevant to the larger issue at hand (whether Roger was injected by McNamee) and try to confuse the issue by making it all about the inconsistency instead of the real issue at hand.  To watch the idiot Congressman, who is obviously in love with Roger and had already made up his mind before the hearing had even begun that McNamee is lying, attempt to completely destroy McNamee's credibility by going after him about this apparent inconsistency that is irrelevant to the overall claim gave me that warm, fuzzy feeling that I get so often about our legal system.  It's the best.  My favorite aspect of "Canseco-Gate" was when we found out that Roger coached his nanny (or tampered with a witness, but it's six of one, half dozen of the other, really) to tell investigators that he wasn't at the party.  There were affidavits flying all over the place, announcers who claim Clemens was at some other game during the party, McNamee claiming he can remember seeing Roger's nanny at the party and remembers what she was wearing, the nanny saying that Roger was at the party, and on and on and on.  Like I said, if you could get past the fact that it was all totally irrelevant (similar, actually, to the entire proceeding), as well as a complete waste of our federal government's time and funds, then it was highly entertaining stuff.

I also discovered that Roger must have worked really hard to stay away from this McNamee guy and his box o' roids.  Apparently, Roger was surrounded by steroids and didn't even know it.  His buddy Andy Petite has admitted he was on them, and was injected by McNamee.  His teammate Chuck Knoblauch too.  Even Roger's wife admitted to getting injected by McNamee.  They must have all known that Roger wouldn't tolerate that kind of behavior, because according to Roger, not a single one of them told him they were taking the juice.  Roger had no idea that his buddy Andy was doing them or even that his wife was doing them.  I'll tell you what - it's a good thing, because I bet Roger would have been really pissed if he'd found out that his own trainer was injecting one of his friends and his wife with steroids.  Looking back on it now, it's a wonder that Roger escaped the seedy world of steroids that unknowingly surrounded him.  He was lucky he made it out drug free.

I also learned that Republican Congressmen love Roger Clemens and Democratic Congressmen love Brian McNamee.  I guess we're now to the point in American politics that we can take party lines on a disagreement between whether or not one guy injected steroids into another guy's ass.  It's only fitting that at a moment like this Congress showed its ass. 

I like the fact that depending on how you want to spin it, you can take the two political parties' positions on the Clemens issue a number of different ways.  Depending on which party you like, the Republicans are pro-steroids and the Democrats are anti-steroids OR the Democrats are pro-lying drug dealer and the Republicans are anti-lying drug dealer.  That keeps it nice and simple for the American public when the elections roll around.

So - this is what we worry about in America - whether Britney is going to make it out of rehab and get her kids back, and whether Roger Clemens was injected with steroids.  I can't wait until this Roger Clemens mess is over and we can start dealing with the important issues in this country.  Senator Arlin Spector of Pennsylvania knows what I'm talking about.  He's spearheading the investigation into why the NFL destroyed six video tapes that the Patriots turned over to league offices in connection with SpyGate.  You go, Arlin!  It's about time we get NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell in front of Congress to tell us about why those tapes were destroyed.  The American public demands the truth!

And we wonder why the rest of the world isn't a big fan of ours right now.

Hey, at least I've got gratuitous pictures of ESPN sideline reporter and Gator Alum Erin Andrews from a recent basketball game!  The two guys circled in the background could give Asante Samuel a run for his money in the 'focus' department (see the previous entry for a pic of Asante's focus).

Go Gators!!!