A Comedy of the Absurd

Sorry for the layoff but family first as they say. Anyway, on to this weeks rant....

One of my favorite comedies is an under-rated Bill Murray film called "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou", mostly because it is based around some of the most absurd humor ever put on camera. This past week I've gotten to see another kind of comedy played out in Washington D.C. that makes the scripted oddities of that Wes Anderson film look like the tired pop culture jokes from the "Epic Movie/Meet the Spartans" crew. I'm of course referring to the Roger Clemens Congressional hearing and Arlen Specter's talks with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. The former came about as the result of one mans ego and the second because of, well, one mans ego. Both were allegedly done to clean things up in the two respective sports, but in the end it was all just a three ring circus with no ringmaster, elephants or trapeze artists, just a bunch of poorly trained clowns cavorting around and getting laughs for all the wrong reasons.

Let's start with the big headline grabber of the month, Roger Clemens going before Congress. First and foremost, that wasn't even supposed to happen. Henry Waxman even came out and said as much, stating that the person who pushed for the hearing was Roger Clemens. It was Clemens who held the big press conference where he played a secretly recorded phone conversation with his former trainer Brian McNamee. It was Clemens who forced the issue and grabbed as much spotlight time as possible. On the other side of the coin it was Congress who started having these kangaroo court hearings in the first place and Congress who split almost universally down party lines during Clemens' questioning last week.

I have to admit I was laughing nearly the whole time during Clemens' testimony. It was such a joke to watch. Prior to the televised questioning Clemens had talked to the members privately and obviously(along with his lawyers) thought he was going to get treated with kid gloves, and why not? The same members who were going to question him publicly were posing for pictures, getting autographs, glad-handing and generally mugging for the camera with their new best friend Roger Clemens. So when the Rocket had to sit down and answer some actual questions regarding the facts in the investigation he looked like the proverbial deer in the headlights, constantly looking to his lawyer for advice on how to answer.

Bu Congress wasn't done there. In order to get even more belly laughs out of the viewers at home they obviously decided going into the hearing that there would be a strict adherence to party lines, meaning the Democrats would ask the hard questions while most of the Republicans tossed Roger some nice juicy softballs or just forgo questioning at all and just kiss his (allegedly) abscessed ass. Hell, for the most part even the questions the Democrats threw weren't even close to a strike. It wasn't until the hearing was almost over that Elijah Cummings finally brought the heat and flat out asked Clemens, why would McNemee tell the truth about Pettitte and Knoblauch but lie about Clemens? If Pettitte is an honest man who openly admitted to using HGH, does that not mean that McNemee is telling the truth about Roger? The Rocket struck out looking.

To add to the already outrageous levels of humor, we also got to see folks like republican Chris Shays practically shouting at McNemee, saying "You deal drugs!" as if that somehow means he's lying under oath. I wonder if Shays has ever worked a narcotics case before. Somehow I doubt it. Shays was backed nicely by Virginia Foxx who brought props to the set in the form of posters from various times in Rogers career as being definitive proof that Clemens could not have been on performance enhancing drugs(and proof she has no freaking clue what the hell she's talking about). Someone just give these guys an Emmy already, they made Frasier look like Joey.

But we're forgetting, this was a double feature. Yes we also got to see Arlen Specter do his best song and dance for the camera about whether or not the New England Patriots secretly filmed the St. Louis Rams final walkthrough before SuperBowl 36. OK, just so we're clear here, the US Army is getting ready to shoot down a Russian satellite, the economy is tanking faster then the Kansas City Royals and the Canadian dollar is getting ready to start looking down on the greenback on a long term basis but what America needs right now is an investigation as to whether or not the Patriots cheated in a game 6 years ago?

But Specter will not be swayed. He met with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and has made it clear he's going to see this through. What he means to accomplish I don't honestly know. For starters there is no proof the Patriots did in fact tape anything, and as Kurt Warner pointed out earlier this week the only plays that the team went through that day were red zone plays and the Rams scored both times they got within the twenty yard line during the game. Dick Vermeil even came out and said he didn't think taping a walkthrough gave you any edge because it's not even a practice, just a quick refresher on a few plays. That the accusation of the alleged cheating came out the week of the Superbowl this year alone should have cast doubt on the validity of it.

Well it doesn't really matter. The egos and grandstanding will not be swayed by any of us. Congress, Specter and Clemens have made it clear they are going to waste as much time and money to brag as many headlines as possible over this farce. Me, I'm grabbing my popcorn and hope I don't spit up my Pepsi because this is just too damn funny.