The Rocket Misfires.

I wanted to watch Roger Clemens’ softball interview on 60 Minutes (transcript here) myself even though most of the judgments based on excerpts had already been made, including the ridiculous assertion regarding lidocaine and B-12 shots that has been nicely debunked by Gary Gaffney over at Steroid Nation:

[7:30] Now Clemens saying he took B-12 and lidocaine (Xylocaine). Lidocaine injections are worthless unless you have a cardiac arrhythmia.

But I’m not necessarily here to deal with the science — I’ll refer you back to Gaffney for that. What was interesting to me is how incoherent the whole interview was — Clemens wasn’t able to provide us with a reason why Brian McNamee would sell him out or lie to federal prosecutors, brought up Vioxx for whatever reason, and openly wondered about how he should be punished if he did do steroids. He just took the appearance and defiant behavior of someone who was guilty, openly questioning what they would do to him — and not in a way that Barry Bonds had declared. Bonds didn’t lean on the credibility argument as much as Clemens did; the Rocket claimed 30 years of hard work. 30 years of hard work and supposed credibility doesn’t mean much right now after the Mitchell Report’s revelations.

Now, will Clemens be able to say the same things when under oath and in front of Congress? We shall see, but let’s just say that he didn’t convert anyone to his pleas of innocence in front of Mike Wallace.

(As an aside, that was a disappointing interview by Wallace, but what do you expect when Clemens chooses his interrogator? 60 Minutes has declined badly since Wallace’s retirement and Ed Bradley’s death; Lara Logan is the only bright spot right now as the foreign replacement for Christiane Amanpour. I used to watch the show and write a summary of the three stories for extra credit for my freshman high school history class, and it’s sad to see what it’s become. Plus, Andy Rooney ought to have his license to think revoked; complaining that the presidential candidates don’t have “presidential-sounding” names is a waste of the three minutes he’s given every week.)

Photo: AP/CBS