Why Congress Should Be Investigating Steroids

It has become popular to criticize Congress for holding hearings on the steroid issue, but actually this is an issue Congress should be dealing with.

1) Congress originally took up the issue at the urging of Don Hooton, whose son Taylor killed himself after using steroids. Hooton attributed his son's suicide to steroids and his son's steroid use to the pervasive use of steroids by professional baseball players. So a citizen took this issue to Congress, and they began an investigation on his behalf, exactly what Congress should be doing.

2) When Congress dug, they found that Major League Baseball and its players had basically been involved in a conspiracy, on an unspoken basis, to allow players to use illegal drugs through an overly lenient testing and punishment policy.

3) Congressional hearings have been very efficacious on this issue. Congress forced Major League Baseball to adopt a stiffer drug testing policy, one that will hopefully succeed in cleaning up the game, at least to some degree.

4) The notion that Congress could solve the other more important problems facing our country if only they weren't so mired in the steroid mess is preposterous. Congress could debate all year about Iraq and nothing would change. Same with many of the other issues. And it's not like they're holding hearings every day. One committee of about 15 Congressmen (out of 435) focusing on the issue for a couple weeks at a time, every couple of years, isn't having a major impact on the future of the country.

Admittedly, this last hearing was little more than a spectacle designed to embarrass Roger Clemens, but if they hadn't held this hearing wouldn't it appear as if Clemens were being let off the hook? Also, Congress still doesn't feel that baseball is doing enough to clean up the sport so they want to keep the heat on.

And yes, I also concede that the Congressmen love the attention they are getting from these hearings, but if it is any consolation, many of them (Shay, Cummings) completely embarrassed themselves.

Finally, as baseball fans, we should all be thrilled that Congress is so tough on these cheaters because without Congress we wouldn't know what to think of McGwire, Sosa, Clemens and especially Rafael Palmeiro.