Send in the Clowns

[sdelmonte]

So today there will be a media circus on Capitol Hill with the express purpose of determining whether one person used steroids.

Even if I thought that Congress should be involved in cleaning up steroids in sports, I cannot see how this is the way to do it. Never mind that I think that this hearing will be full of endless hearsay from both sides, and that nothing I have heard about would stand up as evidence in a real trial.

But then I don't think I expect better from Congress now.

Comments

[bigfluffball.livejournal.com]

Surely all they have to do is test the guy's bodily fluids? Without that kind of evidence I wouldn't have thought they'd have a case.

[sdelmonte]

The athlete in question took the steroids some years ago.

Everything here revolves around the testimony of his former trainer. And if you are lucky enough to not have to hear about this before either the results of the primaries or the weather report on a bad-weather day, I would say you are very lucky.

[bigfluffball.livejournal.com]

I don't get much news here; I sometimes read the Times downstairs, get the newsfeed on my computer in the corner and a weekly update on the college loo news of stuff in the outside world.

Is there really any point in trying someone from this long ago? It sounds a collossal waste of time and effort.

[sdelmonte]

I cannot imagine that anyone outside the US cares about this. It's all about baseball, after all, though I assume that the Premier League has its own steroid concerns.

And I agree - there is really no purpose now to trying to unearth who did steroids before the current crackdown. The theory is that figuring out how widespread it was could tell you how widespread it still might be. But at the end of the day, when the focus is one player who is most likely never playing again, it gets silly.

Mind you, if there were enough evidence to indict him for drug use, the courts would have the right to pursue this the same as any other crime (within the statute of limitations). Congress, last I checked, was not the courts.

[bigfluffball.livejournal.com]

Well, sport is sport. One day when I can afford a tv and obscure additional channels it would be interesting to watch some baseball and American football just to see what it's all about. I mean, we have rounders and rugby, but the former never makes tv and neither are the same.

I apologise in advance for my horrendous ignorance of the US political system (the only time we ever covered it in school was in GCSE history and one session of General Studies) but Congress is like Parliament, isn't it?

I guess perhaps by retrospectively trying to convict people it might dissuade others from going down the same route; if they aren't caught at the time it could still be dragged up later without blood evidence.

[sdelmonte]

Congress is sort of like Parliament. It's one branch of government, and the president is not part of it. Congress passes laws, the president accepts or vetoes them, and neither president or congress conduct trials of anyone but government officials (that's called impeachment).

The theory is, yes, if we can catch you later, we might catch you now and ruin your reputation and so on. The player is question has been ruined now. He will never be elected to the baseball hall of fame, even though the evidence is circumstantial. But I really don't think that this kind of hearing will stop people from using steroids. And the kind of testing needed to curtail their use is already in place.

[bigfluffball.livejournal.com]

I remember now; congress and the president are usually from opposite parties, right? To balance out the power.

It seems a bit unfair to ruin the player before the trial (and presumably if they had any evidence they'd be in court). Whatever happened to 'everyone is innocent until proven guilty'?

I'm surprised Congress has time to be involved in sports trials, if they have the country to run as well.

[buongiornodaisy.livejournal.com]

congress and the president are usually from opposite parties, right?

Not necessarily. Congress is made up of both major parties, Democrat and Republican, as well as (rarely) any third-party or independent candidates who've been elected into office. The President can be and has been of the same party as the majority party in Congress. This is not true now, as we have a majority Democratic Congress and a Republican president, though that may change by next year, depending on who wins the general election this November.

[bigfluffball.livejournal.com]

Ah, thanks, pretty much like our parliament then, except that the leader doesn't depend on the number of seats and we have more third/other party representation.

We probably got taught a vastly oversimplified version in school. And although we get some election stuff filtering over here, it's really just telling us which candiates are in the lead from day to day.

[buongiornodaisy.livejournal.com]

Nope. The leader is elected independently by the public regardless who has the majority in Congress.

And that's your political science lesson for the day. ;)

[bigfluffball.livejournal.com]

As someone who finds voting for both local and national representatives in the same vote highly irritating, I rather wish ours was the same. Back home my vote never counts for anything nationally because the local MP is so good we always end up staying a conservative area.

And very educational it was too, thank you :)

[buongiornodaisy.livejournal.com]

See, my political science class in college made me wish for a Parliament, because, at least, all parties voted for are represented. Granted, a tiny amount of votes equates to a tiny amount of representation, which doesn't guarantee at all that your party has any sway, but at least you're represented? Here, it's winner take all, and it's easy to feel discouraged when, in the end, your vote doesn't count because you voted for the losing candidate.

Of course, I could've gotten Parliament all wrong.

[bigfluffball.livejournal.com]

Not quite, I don't think.

Let us say, purely hypothetically, that in one voting area of 10000 people 45% of votes were for the Green Party rep, and 55% for Labour. And that in another the same size, the Green Party got 35%, Liberal Democrats got 65%.

Total votes for Green Party 8000, Labour 5500, Lib Dems 6500. Number of seats for Green Party 0, Labour 1, Lib Dems 1.

This would probably never actually happen, at least not as obviously as that. But do you see what I mean? It's not proportional representation according to actual votes.

Though since you do political science, you probably know more about it than I do :)

[buongiornodaisy.livejournal.com]

Bah, all I took was one little poli sci class. I'm by no means an expert. :)

[bigfluffball.livejournal.com]

*snugs* S'more than I did. But my ex was very into politics and he talked a lot about proportional representation.

[sdelmonte]

It would be terribly cynical of me to say that these days, all cases involving anyone famous are tried in the court of public opinion and that "innocent until proven guilty" is no longer in play.

It would be equally cynical to suggest that Congress - or at least the 20 or so members of the committee running the hearing - just want the publicity that goes with this. A hearing about the origins of the current economic downturn wouldn't be nearly as well-covered.

[bigfluffball.livejournal.com]

Aye, and it doesn't even stop at things that aren't illegal. My Dad sometimes reads The Sun*, which is so full of the ins and outs of the famous that it rarely seems to contain any actual news.

Why do they need publicity? I mean, nobody's going to forget Congress is there. Or is it some kind of a 'look, congress is doing things, vote for the same people again'
sort of thing?

[*which is written using only words found in the average seven-year-old's vocabulary, usually has a title taking up most of the front page and a naked woman covering the third]

[sdelmonte]

It's the latter. Congressmen run every two years, which means they never stop running for reelection.

And it's easy to forget some of the nobodies in the House (as opposed to the Senate, which has from time to time produced great statesmen).

[bigfluffball.livejournal.com]

I guess it's easy to forget that the regions are so much bigger; our MP is representing an area small enough that plenty of people will have actually met him or written to him.

[sdelmonte]

We have something like 435 Congressmen/women, and over 300 million people. While they could add more members to Congress, it was decided some time ago that it could not get any bigger than it is.

[bigfluffball.livejournal.com]

*nods*

Makes more sense to need a high profile then I guess. I'd imagine some people just vote for ones they've heard of.

[nightstalker.livejournal.com]

Baseball is a legal monopoly, which means that Congress does have legal oversight.

And unlike the people running and ruining the sport, at least some of the Congresspeople involved are actual FANS. They actually care about the game.

If the owners and players won't do anything about it, someone has to. And Congress has the right.