Bush seems "intellectually incurious" about baseball steroid use under his watch
So what else is new? Wall Street Journal, emphasis added:
So on the day that the Mitchell report on steroid use was being released, reporters again were asking why Bush — an owner of the Texas Rangers in the early 1990s — didn’t notice the epidemic of performance-enhancing drugs that was then taking hold of the game?
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino was ready, pointing to an ESPN interview Bush did recently, in which he said that he’s thought long and hard about it, but doesn’t recall ever seeing or hearing evidence of a steroid problem. ...read more
Bush says that steroids "sullied" the sport...Ironic from the man that sullied not only the office of the President, but the global reputation of this country as well.
...And Jose Canseco claims "that Bush smirked his way through his ownership tenure, as syringes were passed around the locker room like a Christmas at Courtney Love's house."
graphic by Zen Comix for The Aristocrats (click image for larger)
Another good caption:
"As a miserable failure in the private sector also, I can assure you the steriod scandal started under Bill Clinton's watch."
Ah yes, the old Ronald Reagan excuse.
The answer "I don't know" only signifies ignorance, incompetence, or that he's flat out lying.
Our acclimation to substance abuse is not by accident.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/10/18/cocaine/
Anyone been sued about this?
I am as anti-Bush as anyone, but trying to criticize Bush for ignoring the steroid scandal in baseball is pretty lame. The steroid scandal IS serious, don't get me wrong. But I would rather read criticism of his administration.
I was so damn angry when I heard him speak about the steroid abuse...I mean really!!! Who fuckin cares! Baseball sucks anyway! And aren't there just a few, SLIGHTLY more important things Chimpy should be focusing on???
All republicans suck all the time. No exceptions.
Would this be time for another lecture from the Eric Alterman types on how bad and dangerous we lefties are if we make the mistake of saying Bush Jr. is stupid?
appnzllr @ 4:
I don't think it's lame at all to blast Bush for having a press conference about this. I say again, there are more pressing matters at hand. And maybe the steroid abuse is serious...but I don't think the goddamn president should be focusing on that issue, while this country falls apart around him, and on top of us!
Give him a break. he was too screwed up on cocaine to know the players were juiceing.
Dubyah's team, the Texas Rangers in the 1990's, had the most steroid abusers (Palmero, Canseco,Juan Gonzales, Ivan Rodriguez to name a few) in the major leagues. Another example of Bush being a complete failure. The cocksucker didn't ask or tell.
Gee, how different things would have been (for the country not for baseball, no doubt) if George W Bush had gotten the job he REALLY wanted in 1992, the title of Baseball Commissioner, and how prophetic were some of his actions as owner of the Rangers.
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=80787
Bush, who claims the biggest mistake he ever made was trading Sammy Sosa for Harold Baines, was the only owner to vote against the Wild Card and team realignment in 1994.
"I made my arguments and went down in flames. History will prove me right," said then-Rangers owner George W. Bush, whose foresight led him to bigger and better things.
"This is an exercise in folly."
George Bush - wrong for baseball. Wrong for America.
I've always liked Canseco because of his "don't give a damn" attitude. Everyone excoriated him for his testimony in Congress back in 2005, but if he was aiming for revenge aganist MLB for banning him and impacting his ability to catch on with another team when he could still play, he must be partying by now.
His revealation about Bush knowing the Rangers were juicing during his ownership is no surprise - if you read Canseco's book "Juiced", he actually stated that he taught most of the Texas Rangers how to shoot up, and if they couldn't inject themselves, he did it for them.
Curt Schilling gave a Sports Illustrated interview where he stated that you couldn't walk through an MLB clubhouse and congratulate a player with the customary swat on the ass without hitting a syringe needle coming out of it.
Once again, Bush lied about something he knew and kept from the public. Will he get the appropriate punishment?
::crickets chirping::
This is just another non-issue designed to take the presssure off dubya in the press. Every major sport that requires speed, strength. or endurance will have steroid users. I say who cares. If steroids are what they need to compete then let them take them. This society makes too many rules under the guise that they are protecting us from ourselves.
Bush mastered the art of buck passing and looking the other wayism
Dubyah’s team, the Texas Rangers in the 1990’s, had the most steroid abusers (Palmero, Canseco,Juan Gonzales, Ivan Rodriguez to name a few) in the major leagues. Another example of Bush being a complete failure. The cocksucker didn’t ask or tell.
Left and Left:
Palmeiro lied about his juicing to Congress, only to get busted last year. I'm wondering if he's gonna get jail time for that.
The Mitchell Report is interesting reading, though. However, if it had any teeth behind it, everyone named as a user or supplier, should be seeing some revocation of...some benefit they got as a result of the juicing.
I noticed that since they cast that net to get Barry Bonds, they also netted Roger Clemens and Andy Pettite in the catch, and now everyone wants the whole thing to go away. Can the race card get played here? Because if the dogs at ESPN want to protest Clemens should get in the HOF, they better clear a place for Bonds right next to him...
Otherwise, everyone who cheated, should get punished. What about guys like Don Baylor, Dwight Evans, Dave Stewart, Jim Rice, Carney Lansford, Don Mattingly - guys who gave their all with sheer athletic prowess and no steroids or any other enhancements? They're the ones who got cheated...
There was probably also abuse of methamphetamines in the clubhouse at the time - and bush was likely a willing, if not highly eager, participant.
Or maybe he "disremembered" because he was always too stoned to care...
Sorry.
Until all the breathless television sports commentators in this country, on ESPN, and everywhere else, are willing to forgo their Hair and Make-Up people, not to mention tanning beds and spray on tans, to say nothing of their Botox use, (and don't get me started on the Viagra), who bemoan the "cheating" that's going on in Major League Baseball that's undermining the "integrity of the game." I won't take a word they have to say on the subject seriously.
Hypocrisy doesn't just apply to meth smoking, gay male hooker using, Evangelical Christians, y'know.
Michael Richards, please.
MLB has made billions of dollars off of these athletes, and now they want to nail them to the tree?
Bite me.
Then again, we don't want to send the wrong message to the 6 million+ American schoolchildren who are forced to swallow Ritalin everyday to improve their performance in our failing schools, because that would be, like, y'know, wrong.
Please, think of the children.
Thanks!
~Nyc
Left&Left @ 10:
If thet's how they played on steroids (badly), I'd hate to of seen how well they'd of played straight. :)
"I don't recall" sounds like somthing somone else has said before. ;)
appnzllr @ 4:
No it's not. It's not 'serious' at all. It's a dog and pony show the shrub co. crime family want you to be thinking about rather than them selling your country down the river and taking away your rights. Fuck baseball and fuck steriods. If a bunch of adults want to ruin their health shooting bull hormones let 'em. I'm a hell of a lot more interested in why the hell it's suddenly such a big deal and needs to be front page news. What's REALLY going on? Did shrub sell the ports again? Are they about to introduce martial law as "Freedom law" ? What is he hiding NOW?
Bush is responsible for a lot....but steroids and baseball, thats a stretch
Bush, thinking long and hard?
Lord,Ii don't think I could stand up on national TV and utter those words without a smirk.
For a man that covered up his own drug, alcohol and service to his country record, I wonder if this could be the straw that finally breaks Bush.
Some intrepid reporter finding out that he KNEW about the drug use and did nothing.
craz3z @ 11:
No shit.
You couldn't be more right
This Gail Sheehy essay on Busch, The Accidental Candidate lays this out in excruciating detail.
Speaking of prophetic, what's really hair-raising about Sheehy's piece is just how clearly it shows that what happened in NOLA with Katrina is part of a larger pattern with these people.
I'm still trying to get over how the mantra of the 2000 Election was "We're Building A Bridge To The 21st Century" and how much closer we are today to the 12th Century, with the likes of Huckabee and Romney being considered viable Presidential Candidates.
What a difference an Administration makes, eh?
~Nyc
Bush seems “intellectually incurious”. Period. Worst. President. Ever.
The word parsing is a dead giveaway. If Bush just said "It didn't happen," or "I never saw it," then he could be proven to be a liar.
But by saying he doesn't recall, he's trying for "pausible deniability." As if he had any credibility left.
Bush was probably too busy buddying around with the governors of California and Minnesota to be bothered with steroid users in MLB
Does anyone ever believe "I can assure you"? Boy, I don't.
How is this news?
The US is a nation mired in war and heading for its own destruction.
How is drugged ball playing worthy of this website?
"White House spokeswoman Dana Perino was ready, pointing to an ESPN interview Bush did recently, in which he said that he’s thought long and hard about it, but doesn’t recall ever seeing or hearing evidence of a steroid problem"
Thinking is HARD work!
Ed @ 28:
Welcome To Rome, With Television.
East Germany, under the Soviet, had the same emphasis on athletes and sports as we do in this Bread And Circuses atmosphere that we're in in America today.
But at least they had the dignity, and self-respect, to not feel ashamed, or apologize, for their athletes use of performance enhancing drugs to be the best that they can be.
There's a picture of George Busch Jr. and his Dad in a Skybox when Junior was the owner of the Texas Rangers and in the background you can see his players warming up in the field before a game.
It's clear that he views these baseball playing athletes no differently than a race horse owner does their thoroughbred Arabians and Stallions, so why would he care about common Americans?
Judging from her comments at the Superdome after Katrina, it's obvious his mom sure doesn't.
That's the mentality we've been dealing with and it's not going to go away anytime soon.
~Nyc
Any drug-using social group has it's ways to hide use, downplay it, even a language designed to throw off any unwanted attention. Drug use is simply a hidden culture. Teenagers can right under their parents eyes without throwing off too many alarm bells, so why not sports stars? The real question is this, what other groups or organizations has steriod use bled into, and can we prevent it from spreading more?
Oh boy...add one more item to the "I don't recall" bush about baseball. Instead of Decider in chief he should be "Lost in Left Field" bush.
The only solution to this "problem" is to end the hypocrisy and eliminate all drug testing from Major League Sports.
Either that, or set up parallel leagues where no drug testing is performed, and let the markets decide which one will succeed.
Not that Professional Sport in America isn't a rigged game, because it isn't, because this was just an isolated case of someone getting blinded by dollar signs.
Surely no 20 something Professional athlete in America's money driven culture would fall prey to the lure of easy cash like this.
:P
~Nyc
There are probably more pressing matters regarding Bush than steroid abuse, however, it is a reflection of another organic aspect of American culture that has fallen by the wayside due to corporate money-grubbing. Many sports buffs are saddened by the fact we'll never have any more Babe Ruths, Willie Mays or genuine sports heroes who didn't play this twisted game to get where they got...
Why does professional baseball exist? To provide cultural continuity? To teach fair-play morals to children? No, silly geeses, it exists to make megatons of money! And what better way to increase the flow of cash than to make the athletes bigger, so they can crush the ball farther! Who wants to watch spindly, pudgy little normal humans compete when they can watch gigantic all-star wrestlers? Besides me, anyway...
The one sad note is that there still may be a few real ball players out there, or players who might use HGH strictly to heal up from injuries. But where would you reasonably draw the line, if you could? This country has always struggled with a balance between freedom and responsibility. Nowhere is that balance more illusory than in the world of entertainment, where big, pretty and strong equate with wealth and status.
If you really want to watch baseball clean of drugs, go watch a kid's game in Panama. I can't vouch for high schools in the US. Otherwise, thank the good folks at our pharmaceutical giants for those tape measure homeruns and hundred mile per hour fastballs. Just remember to remind your kids: Wash those needles!
I really don't get the "controversy" over the recent news. The sport's been tainted with corruption since the 1920s, so get over it.
President Chimpy McFuckupistan is intellectually incurious about everything but his next Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich. Oh. And what flavor juice box Laura is going to surprise him with at lunch, just before he rolls out his nap mat.
The Political Junkie @ 15:
There's absolutely no doubt that the Texas Rangers clubhouse of the late 1980's (when GWB was President of the Rangers) was the incubator of the steriods culture. Also,the new Rangers stadium that GWB help build was the most blantant example of a ridiculously homerun friendly park. The result was offensive baseball inflation in the late 1990's and early 2000's - culminating in the outrageous 73 homer season for BB. Like any inflation, once the hangover starts you have to go back and question the real value of the numbers.
I hope some of those old-timers you mention get a second look for the HOF (I would add Dale Murphy to that list).
I'll echo the sentiments of some people here: I'm intellectually incurious about the baseball steroid scandal as well.
I DON'T CARE. I DON'T CARE. I DON'T CARE. I DON'T CARE.
This should be an entirely private matter within the world of professional baseball. Bush shouldn't be talking about it; Congress shouldn't be investigating it.
You know, I love C&L. But I hate the kind of dishonest impression you give with this sentence (lifted verbotim from the entry): And Jose Canseco claims “that Bush smirked his way through his ownership tenure, as syringes were passed around the locker room like a Christmas at Courtney Love’s house.”
The quotation marks lead one to believe this is a quote from Canseco. It's not. It's a quote from David Ziren, who wrote an article about Canseco's book & appearance on 60 minutes. Come one. You can do better than this. You don't need to fudge quotes or facts to prove Bush is an ass and a criminal. In fact, fudging allows those who don't want to believe you to grasp onto reasons to not believe you. You hurt only your own credibility when you do things like this.
I'm glad boosh doesn't worry his beautiful mind about 'roids. this was all a witch-hunt for bonds anyway.
this blog needs fixing!
I DON'T SEE NO QUOTES RE: CANSECO'S STATEMENTS RE: BUSH.
Ahh, yes. The "I don't recall" cry of a true slimeball neocon.
Sure sound like he's blaming the troops to me...
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