When it comes to protecting the American people’s interests or looking out for taxpayer money Congress has a pretty awful track record, but when it comes to tough talk about questionable issues and an occasional multi-billion dollar bailout for a financial institution, Congress takes its job very seriously. 

Some of congress’ best performances come when they aren’t even pretending they can or will do anything about a problem.  In 2005, when parts of the world that have never heard of baseball were aware that every dominant baseball player for 15 years was a steroid user, Congress determined the time was right to hold hearings to determine the scope of the problem.  One of the ways it did this was to invite several players it believed were users so that they could be awkwardly embarrassed in front of the committee and a large television audience.  The players who were called for this hearing for some reason did not agree that this was a productive use of time.  Sammy Sosa found it so objectionable, that he suddenly forgot all of that endearing broken English that made for great endorsements a few years prior, and Mark McGuire adopted a form of taking the 5^th amendment that made him sound like he had some kind of brain injury.

For a lot of reasons, but mostly because it was a terrible idea, Congress did not get what it wanted from the hearing, so it told Major League Baseball to call George Mitchell, who for some reason is the only person anyone in Washington can think to call when they need anything, and have him stop whatever unsuccessful thing he was doing to try to bring peace to the annoying time suck of the Israel/Palestine mess and do an investigation into the use of performance enhancing drugs in baseball. George Mitchell said he didn’t really know anything about baseball, and admitted to being on the board of directors of the Boston Red Sox which seemed like an obvious conflict-of-interest, but agreed that he was probably the best person for the job and that it was unlikely that they’d find a better token straight shooter anywhere and said he'd do the investigation.  Six months later, Mitchell published a report, which politicians called "the Mitchell report" which was described as “frank” and “scathing” due to such compelling conclusions as “the use of steroids in Major league baseball is widespread”.

Despite its characteristic Mitchell-directness, the report did not come up with definitive statistics about the scope of the steroid problem, mostly because it sought to solve the problem by identifying exactly 14 current and former players as steroid users, and explaining in great detail, the scope of their use.

One of the most robust sections of the report related to Roger Clemens and was the product of interviews given to prosecutors by Brian McNamee, Clemens’ eyes-too-close-together “personal trainer” who was arrested for trafficking in illegal steroids in 2006. The report made Clemens’ life, which most people assumed was pretty much what you’d expect from a spoiled redneck dumbass, sound like pretty much what you’d expect from a spoiled redneck dumbass except for the parts about how when Clemens was out of town, McNAmee would swing by the house to shoot steroids into his wife’s buttocks.

Clemens wasted no time in voicing his discontent with the Mitchell report and calling McNamee a liar, and instructed Rusty Hardin, his ripped-from-a -1970’s -television -drama attorney to demand a chance to go before congress to say roughly the same thing he was saying in the media, except under oath, so that in the event that Brian McNamee had been, for example, holding onto DNA evidence of the steroid use, he could go to jail, instead of just being embarrassed and making up some speech about how he only used it a few times to come back from an injury. 

Sure enough, several weeks later, Rodent Henry Waxman and the rest of his committee obliged, and called yet another hearing, this time a 4.5 hour drama in which southern Republican congressional leaders mostly washed Clemens’ balls and begged for autographs while calling McNamee names during his testimony, which resulted in a decent game of "which accent makes people sound less intelligent - southern, or Long Island" which ended in a draw.  

During his introduction, a peeved Clemens spewed inarticulate jive about lessons he learned from his mother, and also reminded the panelists about his patriotism by referencing a day in which he climbed out of a duck blind to answer a phone call from then-president George H.W. Bush.   The testimony from McNamee contradicted Clemens on every point aside from naked wife injections but both were so incoherent that one might think all either of them did for their adult lives was, play baseball, go to strip clubs, work out and eat at Applebee’s.  Also, it was painfully obvious to everyone in America aside from Dan Burton (R-IN)  that Roger Clemens was definitely lying.

This week we learned that federal prosecutors agreed, and have indicted Clemens on six counts related to specific lies he told during his appearance at the hearings he demanded.  Clemens and his lawyers say they’re excited to have their day in court, but I suspect those making $800 an hour are the only ones who will be excited when it’s all said and done.  About a year from now, as he heads to jail in Kentucky,  Clemens will be wishing he was back in a duck blind.  But my biggest concern is for congress – without this issue to take up their time they’ll theoretically be back to dealing with real problems – and what are they supposed to do if George Mitchell isn't available to write a report about them?