Give it up, Roger

So, I'm back, and the world is much the same as it was when I last checked in over here on a sports-related topic: a story I really wish would go away continues to dominate the scene. That story, of course, is the Roger Clemens v. Brian McNamee saga. The major development that occured while I was out was McNamee turning in used syringes with steroid residue and bloody gauze, all said to be used on Clemens and to be likely to carry his DNA. A secondary development has been Clemens' PR tour in Washington, as he has arranged one one one meeting with member's of Congress in advance of this Wednesday's hearing, which of course, will get the full barrage of coverage.

All I have to say at this point is: Give it up, Roger. Here's the thing - I believe Brian McNamee. But really, it doesn't matter what I believe. It really doesn't even matter what actually happened at this point, to a large extent. The reality of this situation is that Clemens has already lost in the court of public opinion. The general public overwhelmingly believes McNamee's story, and I'm becoming rapidly convinced that there's nothing Clemens can do to change that reality. He's in a no-win situation. McNamee has been deemed credible by the public, and thus Clemens is left with the impossible task of trying to prove a negative. A good performance at Wednesday's hearing won't change that. Winning a defamation suit against McNamee won't change that. Nothing, short of Brian McNamee standing up under oath and saying he made the whole thing up, is going to remove the "cheater" mark from the Rocket's resume. Seeing as how doing that would lead McNamee to a jail cell, I don't think that'll be happening anytime soon. The damage is done.

Absent any real ability to prove Clemens' innocent, his lawyers are clearly resorting to an attempt at smearing McNamee, hoping to damage his credibility. There's only one problem with that - McNamee worked for Clemens for about 8 years, and was working with Clemens within a week of when the Mitchell report was released, which means that had NcNamee not been caught up in the Mitchell investigation, he'd probably still be working for Clemens. Underlying any attempts to paint McNamee as a troubled, dispicable human being will be met with the obvious underlying question: "Why was he still working for you then?" For instance, Clemens' team informed us recently about how McNamee was once accused of date rape, only to have those charges dropped. Pretty heavy stuff. Of course, that fact didn't stop Clemens from hiring McNamee shortly after the incident. The other problem with any credibility attacks is the fact that the other players that McNamee implicated have admitted his account to be truthful.

It really seems to me like the Clemens' team is feeling desperate at this point. Why else would they try to compare Clemens to the members of the Duke lacrosse team who were falsely accused of rape in 2006, and the victims of gross prosecutorial misconduct by former Durham County D.A. Mike Nifong? Drawing a connection between Nifong and George Mitchell seems to be more than a little bit of a reach, and even if Clemens is being falsely accused, the cases aren't any more similar than that. In that case, the evidence (or complete lack there of, to be more specific) exonerated the accused. There's no similar outcome available for Clemens in this case. We wouldn't expect there to be evidence available (beyond McNamee's testimony) that Clemens did steroids several years ago, and so even if the evidence that McNamee has come forth with wouldn't hold up in court, it's hardly the same as the woman crying rape having been found not to have the DNA of the accused anywhere on her.

So, once again, I say, give it up Roger. Rightly or wrongly, you've been put in a no-win situation. Go to Congress, tell your story one last time, and then walk away. If you didn't it, live with that knowledge absent any vindication from the rest of the world. If you did, pray that no one can ever prove it in a court of law, because you've already lied to the feds, and they've been known not to like that.