Tom Davis Calls Roger Clemens a Dumbass

Rep. Tom Davis lost his job as ringmaster of the steroid circus on Capitol Hill—he’s the guy who brought in Canseco, McGwire, Palmeiro and the rest in 2005—when Democrats took control of the House. So now he’s playing the role of lead clown.

Davis (R-Va.) has issued a 109-page report that argues that Roger Clemens might have told the truth to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform during his Feb. 15 appearance.

Among the claims the mercenary pitcher made under oath was that trainer Brian McNamee gave Clemens’ wife human growth hormone injections in their bedroom without Clemens’ knowledge. To buy that, you’d have to believe Clemens is beyond an idiot. With his report, Davis is acting like he buys that.

Davis doesn’t really believe Clemens, of course. But, these are partisan times, and Davis, who has said he’s not going to run for office this year, is going to go out as a partisan hack. So he had to counter the report filed a couple weeks ago by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who took over chairmanship of the committee from Davis. Waxman’s report, like all callers to sports radio for weeks after the hearing, skewered Clemens as unbelievable.

So how did saving Clemens become a Republican cause? Even before the Davis debacle, Canseco wrote that Clemens has gotten by because of ties to the Bush family. Canseco apparently lays it all out in his new book, Vindicated: Big Names, Big Liars, and The Battle to Save Baseball.

The book isn’t on the market yet, but a Massachusetts freelancer named Joe Lavin found a copy and wrote up some highlights on his blog. Among them is a passage where Canseco explains why he thinks the media ignored—or, in the case of 60 Minutes, censored—all his past accusations against Roger Clemens.

Clemens is a personal friend of Bush Sr. and his wife, Barbara. Clemens still has a standing invitation from Bush Jr. to visit the White House anytime. Getting the picture? Maybe the president of the United States, or his daddy, the ex-president, made some calls and took care of things for good ole Roger.

Clemens repeatedly brought up his ties to Bush during his testimony on the Hill.

Davis was listening.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 26th, 2008 at 9:19 pm and is filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.