If you watched the Roger Clemens steroid hearings that came out of the US Congress last week, three things should have jumped right out at you.

1) Congressional Chair Henry Waxman looks like a Hanna Barbera cartoon.

2) Clemens threw his wife under the bus for using roids, but still claims they never entered his own system, which has to be the final nail in the coffin containing his credibility. 

3) There’s possibly no worse liar in the history of the world than Roger Clemens. I mean, this dude couldn’t lie straight in an iron lung. He fell just short of crossing his fingers every time he spoke. As Jon Stewart pointed out on The Daily Show last night, if you’re playing poker against Clemens and he licks his lips twice, "Go all-in."

It should be said, this Congress has been perhaps the worst in history for actually enforcing the oaths it makes those testifying before it utter. Every Congressional Hearing on anything the slightest bit important has been dotted with obvious liars and muddlers, folks who refuse to answer questions, folks who talk in circles, and folks who refuse to hand over evidence that has been subpoenaed.

But they may yet (and it’s still a ‘may’) decide that lying to the face of Congress in a way that makes ones pants suddenly catch fire is just uncool, and it would seem that all indicators are pointing to Roger Clemens as being the guy that’ll take the ‘making an example of someone’ hit.

Says the New York Times: 

A Congressional committee has taken the first steps toward asking the Department of Justice to start a criminal investigation into whether Roger Clemens committed perjury during testimony about performance-enhancing drugs, according to three lawyers with knowledge of the matter.

A draft letter referring Clemens, but not his accuser Brian McNamee, had been drawn up by staff members for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform by the end of last week, according to two of the lawyers.

Of course, this should make Raffy "never ever ever" Palmeiro happy, since he too lied to the face of Congress. It should also make Sammy "no speaka da English’ Sosa happy, since he’s claims not to understand what was being asked of him are hilarious. Really, Sammy? You don’t speak the language? That’s odd - you spoke it in Vancouver when you played Triple-A ball - what changed?

One person that has some questions to answer now, especially if Clemens is indicted, is sports reporter Jason Whitlock, the lumbering oaf who, until recently, wrote for ESPN’s Page 2 site.

See, Whitlock has been yelling for years now that the only reason Barry Bonds was being hounded by the media was because he’s black. Nothing to do with him killing hallowed records while pumping elephant juice into his veins. Nothing to do with him being an ass to all and sundry. Nothing to do with perjury, or calling those that doubted him nasty names, or having his buddy go to prison for a year to prevent him from testifying against Bonds, or the overwhelming evidence against the guy.

No, according to Whitlock, it’s all about colour.

To hear Whitlock discuss the issue, the ‘media’ is one giant club of white guys who get together of a morning, play some Pat Boone albums, and say, "So, lads, which of these dark fellows are we going to sacrifice today?"

Which is weird, because:

• Sammy Sosa isn’t white, and quite frankly, he hasn’t been nearly as victimized in the steroid drama as Mark McGwire (who has no colour in his body at all, if you ignore the bright red of his ‘backne’).
• Gary Sheffield isn’t white, but Jason Giambi took more heat on ‘roids than Sheff ever did, despite Sheffield being a Grade-A douchebag and Giambi confessing back when everyone else was denying.
• Palmeiro? Not exactly white (if you wanna get all technical about it), but short of being booed a bunch, he’s not been punished for his sins.

Regardless, there’s Whitlock subbing on the Jim Rome radio show and writing in his print outlets, claiming that, if not for his being black, Barry Bonds has no problems in the world. In fact, back in 2006, Whitlock even went so far as to suggest that steroids are only a problem when used by someone who isn’t American, a dude and coloured white.

For decades, the American press has taken great delight in vilifying
"steroids" because we didn’t respect the accomplishments of East German
sprinters, Chinese swimmers, Canadian sprinters or defiant home-run
hitters from the Bay Area.

No Jason, we vilified them because they used illegal, harmful means of setting their records. And, not for nothing, but kids look up to athletes and copy them when they do stuff like steroids. That leads to kids dying. And folks in the media are generally averse to kids dying. It’s like a ‘thing’ with them.

Let’s just ignore the idiocy of a guy who played football in the pre-testing era telling us that roids are a-okay, and move on to the race-based stuff.

Putting a black face on an American epidemic is the oldest trick in the
book. It might help the simpleminded sleep at night, but it’s not going
to stop that directionless teenager in suburbia or the inner city from
doing whatever he thinks is necessary to compete at the highest level.

I’m sorry, the media is "putting a black face" on steroids because it’s focused on the best player of the last twenty years and how he destroyed a hallowed record while using chemicals to get there? A hallowed record owned by another black man, at that?

What really pisses me off about Whitlock’s stupidity (and that’s what this is), is that he claims racism from everyone else, but can’t see his very own brand of the stuff. If Bonds was a Latino, would he be claiming race was a factor in his being busted for his crimes? Was he asking folks to back off McGwire, back when Andro was found in the great white whale’s locker? Has he come out to defend Bret Boone or Raffy Palmeiro or Jason Giambi?

No. Only Bonds. Because of all those nasty folks who are racists for wanting the biggest poster-boy for steroid use in history to be punished for his crimes.

Of course, after months of saying "how come everyone is on Bonds’ case, but nobody is going after Roger Clemens," the media did exactly that. Evidence was found that Clemens had been using, as well as his (white) Yankees rotation-buddy, Andy Pettitte, and the media went at them as the media should. These are big name athletes caught bang to rights, and Clemens, being the pitching equivalent of Bonds in terms of player stature and Hall of Fame-likelihood (and, frankly, nastiness - this is a guy that nearly beaned his son, after all), made for a great big fat drug-enhanced target.

Suddenly, Whitlock was backed into a corner. After months of bitching at the media for not talking about Clemens, suddenly there they were, talking about him. In a mean way. Oooh!

Whitlock’s response?

The leaders of the Barry Bonds witch hunt need Clemens. In order to
prove their lack of bias and agenda, they must tie and burn Clemens at
the same stake they used to roast Barry the last five years.

Can someone please give me a freaking break?

He said the same thing on the Jim Rome show last week - that ‘the media’ was only going for Clemens now because they had to prove they weren’t racists. 

So Whitlock thinks the ENTIRE MEDIA (which, just to be clear, has many African American folks like Whitlock working within it) clubbed together and had a conversation something like this:

Whitey Whiterson: Okay, so this Whitlock dude has busted us. He’s saying we’re all racists. What do we do?
Paleface McPalepale: Well, we could make a big deal out of this Roger Clemens thing?
Whitey Whiterson: Sorry, Roger who?
Paleface McPalepale: He apparently plays baseball. One of ours.
Whitey Whiterson: Hmm. Has he paid his dues to the White Club of America this year?
Phil Accountingstein: No, he’s two years in arrears.
Whitey Whiterson: Release the hounds.

So now it looks like Clemens will be indicted for perjury - What now, Whitlock? What’s your new excuse? Is Congress trying to appear non-racist? Or were you, maybe, absolutely wrong the whole way along this story?

Sadly, anyone expecting Whitlock to recant his several years of incorrect guesswork and apologism will be waiting a long time.

White folks can’t wait to forgive Clemens. All he needed to do was
offer the same kind of half-hearted apology Jason Giambi gave. A
momentary show of contrition and the steroid witch hunters would’ve
returned to their primary mission of tar and feathering Barry Bonds.

Right
now, the masses are upset with Clemens because he’s turned attention
away from Bonds by claiming innocence and glad-handing congressmen. The
witch hunters never wanted to burn Clemens at a stake.

How on earth does astonishing stupidity like this get paid for, let alone printed?

So we’ve gone from "how come nobody talks about Clemens" to "they’re only talking about Clemens so we don’t think they’re racist" to "okay, they’re talking about Clemens a whole lot, but they don’t want to." This guy is painted so far into a corner that he’s nearly in the next room.

BlogCritics Sports wrote about Whitlock’s ridiculousness, and they summarized it well.

There’s no doubt that some people stay up all night just so they can
think of ways to apply the race card to every conceivable situation.
“The bus was late today? Well, everyone knows it’s because minorities
depend on public transportation.” “Your hamburger was undercooked?
Well, they know back in the kitchen who gets what.  They know. It’s
because you’re black.”

People like this, by constantly harping on race, diminish the impact that real racism has on real people.

I’m not going to say there isn’t racism in sports. Hell, I’ll tell you there’s racism in plumbing. There’s racism in the insurance business, and boardrooms, and soup kitchens, and Rotary Club meetings and churches and anywhere else people in America might gather.. except one place.

The one place where racism cannot exist in any substantial way in modern day America is in sports reporting.

Do we recall Rush Limbaugh, on ESPN, a few years back saying Donovan McNabb was getting a bunch of favourable press because he was black? You don’t see Limbaugh on TV anymore, do you? (Thank God)

What NBA reporter would last ten minutes on his beat if he had a grudge against black guys? What NFL stringer would get near a locker room if he cracked on non-whites? How much press has Shaq got over the years, or Kobe, and how many racist cracks did Mike Strahan have to take after winning the Superbowl with the Giants this year? Anyone remember Magic Johnson? Kareem? Michael Jordan? Who’s bigger than Tiger Woods? The Williams sisters?

"Marion Jones got busted for roids, and she’s black" - Yeah? Is the Greek Olympic Sprinting team black? How about half the Tour de France?

Seriously? Racism? You’re going to play that card, Whitlock?

There are people out there that suffer through racism every day and receive real disadvantage in having to do so. Those people are the ones Whitlock should be writing about, not some nasty millionaire drug cheat who lies under oath, sends his buddies to prison, and makes the national pastime a running joke.

But then, those little people who don’t play baseball shouldn’t expect any help from Jason Whitlock.. after all, he’s not friends with those people, is he?

Nor is he a friend of the Rutgers Women’s Basketball Team, getting himself much press as he took the contrarian angle and sided with undeniable racist Don Imus, after he referred to them as ‘nappy-headed hos’.

In closing, I leave you with the following paragraph, written by Whitlock after his Page 2 firing - a paragraph that resulted in him losing his TV gigs as well. I think it makes it very clear that this is a guy who shouldn’t - can’t - be trusted to be allowed anywhere near a microphone, blog, or word processing program.

Black people are tired of letting idiots define who we are. It’s dangerous. [...] It’s not on white people. And it’s not on old black people like Cosby and Oprah. We have to police our own. W.E.B. Dubois talked about the talented 10 percent leading the black masses. We’re letting the Ignorant 5 lead us straight to hell. The Ignorant 5 are telling white folks, “Yeah, this is how we really is. Let me bojangle for ya, boss. You say step and I’ll show ya I can fetch.” [...] The Ignorant 5 is the new KKK and twice as deadly. That’s why you don’t hear ’bout the KKK anymore. The Klan is just sitting back letting 50 Cent and all the other bojanglers do all the heavy lifting.

Wow.