It seems to me that the last thing this nation needs to be worrying about right now is ultra-fit athletes and teens. I realize they aren’t the healthiest option, and there is the potential to kill people, but…
(tongue in cheek) I’m sure this is just a case of a bunch of overweight, lazy Nerds being threatend by over-muscled sports jocks, but good gracious.
Maybe because Iraq and Guantanamo are not a cause for concern? Just a wild guess…
It seems like to me that most politicians now watch the news and react to it instead of being leaders. They are mostly lead by what the info-tainment channels (CNN, FoxNews, etc) are feeding people and what they seem to be interested in.
Face it, more people are interested in baseball than in the fact that people are dying all over the world.
Nowadays, the news is just the same things happening to different people.
My $.02
They are like me at work: working hard to look busy.
I thought that most of these drugs were legal with a prescription, maybe I’m wrong.
So they could be using these substances within the law but not within the regulations that baseball sets.
I don’t understand why congress has their nose in it either 
jaretj
I think there is a reason that congress has show such an interest in steriods in baseball (in addition to the reasons already mentioned).
My facts are very vague, but it goes something like this…
Some years ago, MLB was given a special exemtion from anti-trust laws in the USA by congress. This was due to it being the national past time and all that other happy horsesh##. Thus, the MLB is the only league in town (pun intended) when it comes to pro baseball in the USA.
Because of this special exemtion, congress actually has a measure of control over MLBs activities. Recently, congress threatened to remove the special antitrust status, which would have been a tremendous blow to the league. Obviously it got everyones attention.
Anyway, this is why you hear congress going on and on about baseball and not other sports like fball and basketball.
Yah, but they’ve had both the NFL and the NBA (yesterday) before house panels for questioning. Not 100 percent sure why, though.
The Senate is interested because Bush mentioned steroids in pro sports in his State of the Union address.
Bush is interested because … he wasn’t as good a ball player as his dad, and he blames it on steroid use which gave some players an advantage?
Or maybe it has something to do with MLB returning to Washington (Nationals).
I’m going to stick with my disgruntled nerd theory.
It easier to hold hearings about steroids than it is to cut spending, cut taxes, exercise their duties of oversight of administrative agencies or anything else they are obligated to do. It’s also much more fun to hold hearings than it is to just go home if they have actually done everything they are supposed to do.
Also, here in DC, it’s nice when geniune celebrities come to town to testify for something. Spotting Congressman So-and-So at a restaurant or James Carville with his Element just gets old. I think Congress is making an effort to get more beautiful and buff people here.
May be opening a can of worms, but I’d be interested to know how steroids have the potential to kill someone.
To answer the question, one word, photo-op.
I saw an interview with a member of the commitee. He stated that one of the reasons was that children today idolize athletes, and imitate them. Little Billy sees a juiced up Barry Bonds hitting a baseball 500 feet into the cove and thinks that is what he needs to succeed. He doesn’t have the lab resources that Big Head does so he just goes to the local Gold’s and buys the shit that just got off the truck from Mexico and ends up Jacking himself up. There was a kid amongst his constituency that died after something similar. His parents freaked out and asked him to help. Blah blah blah.
Don’t know if I agree with this line of reasoning though. I tend to give parents a big ole waffle house sized-portion of the blame in situations like this one.
I ask myself the same thing all the time. Maybe it was to get some heat off for the Iraq mess, that took heat of the Afganistan mess…who knows. But I would think the economy, the budget, North Korean missles, and such would be more important.
I’ve always wondered, if we legalized drugs (steroids, pot, whatever), would it solve some of the problems we have with them, such as smuggling, cartels and gang violence, etc. Hmmm, I don’t know…but I do wonder…
-bcreager
It’s easy to understand why so many politicians are interested in this:
-1 It gets huge press coverage
-2 It’s an easy right/wrong issue and there’s only one side to be on
-3 They can be seen doing something “positive”
-4 It’s fairly “easy” to solve in the scope of things
-5 Takes attention and resources from the really difficult issues that can’t be band-aided like:
Iraq/US soldiers getting killed on daily basis
Sudan’s genocide we are letting happen
Affordable Medical coverage for our citizens
The huge trade defecit
The ballooning federal defecit
Global warming and the energy crisis
Tons of new legislation that favors the exceedingly rich
Removing the ban on the roadless wilderness areas to let logging companies in at TAXPAYER expense
Thousands of high risk terrorist targets we do NOTHING to safeguard
The list is endless…you really can see why they’d jump all over such an easy black and white issue.
They dont’ have the will or fortitude to tackle real issues with fairness and good logic.
That’s just my two cents. I believe this administration is the worst this country has seen in years.
Brilliant insight…never though of it that way, but it makes perfect sense. Be a hero doing the simple stuff, and you don’t have to worry about finding the scape goat for the rest of the “important” stuff.
Bad administration…sure. Worse then most…I’m impartial. The worst…I personally will give that distinction to Nixon administration for “closing the gold window”. Smart move guys, let me count how many times fiat currency has worked in recoreded history…hmmmm, looks like a big fat goose egg on that, 0!
-bcreager