So after all these years the Feds feel they have a case? Or maybe now they have a Department of (selective) Justice leader more in the style of the former Grand Wizard, er Attorney General Ashcroft, the Mark McGwire apologist, who initiated the whole BALCO investigation because he was jealous that his local hero was surpassed in the record books by Big Bad Black Barry. My own personal theory using the same logic that others have used. You know the whole Barry was jealous of Sammy and Mark thing.
Where was Ashcroft when the FBI was investigating McGwire during Operation Equine. Maybe things would have been a lot different. Right!! For those who don't believe race plays a factor in this look up Operation Equine and see what you find. And see if you understand where selective prosecution plays a huge factor in all of this.
Operation Equine:
http://www.ergogenics.org/canseco2.html
http://www.ergogenics.org/fbi2.html
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=steroids&num=5
This is the same Department of Justice, the same Administration and virtually the same Congress that watched Rafael Palmeiro wag his finger in front of their faces and chastise them for accusing him of steroid use, then fails a test shortly thereafter, and they can't put a perjury case together against him? Apparently now they've figured it out.
The argument goes something along the lines of, "Well, just because he failed a test shortly a testifying doesn't mean we can prove he was doing steroids when he testified before Congress. Therefore, we can't prove he lied to us enough to charge him with perjury". Are you freaking kidding me?
And we're to hear that the Feds really take this lying under oath stuff seriously?
Every day, they make themselves into more and more of a running joke. And the problem is, they are in charge making decisions that effect the economy, national security and the future of this country.
Now, we have a newly minted Attorney General in Mike Mukasey, who apparently is the only person in the free world who does not seem to realize that water boarding is considered torture. He fits right in with a Bush Administration whose lasting legacy is going to be of an administration of hooligans that throughout it's eight years consistently and systematically treated the Constitution as if it was a piece of toilet paper. Illegal wire tapping of citizens, KGB style secret prisons, selective disregard for due process and on and on.
Even if Greg Anderson flipped after all these years of incarceration and the duress of feeling the full might of the Department of Justice and the IRS on his back threatening to ruin his life, how effective a witness can he be?
If he turns and testifies, I would assume Michael Rains would have a field day with his testimony. We have only a history of either vague, contradictory statements or no statements at all regarding his dealings with Bonds and Balco.
All you have to do is think back to Patti Hearst and how she went from sweet little rich girl to machine gun toting bank robber after being held for a short while by the Symbionese Liberation Army. It's called the Stockholm Syndrome. Of course, the defense didn't work out to well for Hearst because the jury felt she had chances to escape her captors or not actively participate in criminal activity, but the underlying theory applies even more to Anderson flipping to the government side, if indeed he did so. I would think most would understand he was coerced to testify. And I do not think Anderson had the same opportunity to escape the clutches of Uncle Sammie as Patti Hearst had to escape from the SLA.
Victor Conte has already questioned the chain of custody for any positive drug sample that may have been provided. Balco was not a certified drug testing facility, they farmed out the work. So the protocol followed for verifying any samples or records that the DOJ may have found in their dumpster dive at Balco would seem to be evidence that would also get shredded fairly easily.
And even if a positive sample is produced, I'm not sure if that pierces the "unknowingly" defense strategy Bonds and his team will pursue.
The good news is this is finally out of the court of public opinion. The court of public opinion is the court favored by those who turn a blind eye to instances like the Jena 6, the Ku Klux Klan and the selective violation of peoples civil rights all over this country. Remember it was the Court of Public Opinion that would have kept Rosa Parks on the back of the bus - the Court of Law changed that. The Court of Public Opinion was for segregation - the Court of Law gave us Brown vs. Board of Education. The Court of Public Opinion is the court of choice for lynch mobs and Klansmen. The Court of Public Opinion is for talk show hosts and backyard gossips and magpies - the Court of Law is where civilized people decide matters of law.
What we do have is more fodder for the lackeys in the media to come out of their holes, iron their finest sheets and robes and come out and Barry-bash one more time. All this after baseball has finished ringing the cash register, albeit while acting as if they were holding their noses through it all. Do you think they are going to give the money back? Are any of the teams that charged a Barry Bonds premium to their ticket prices going to refund money back to their patrons I think not. Will they donate the excess cash generated by the traveling Bonds show from last year? My estimate of the excess generated by the show would be anywhere from $100-150 million dollars across the league. And now they want to do something. Shameless.
One of the local wags was screeching about how it has been documented that Bonds lied 19 times to the Grand Jury (I assume the source is the medias bible on the subject, Game of Shadows). So the book documents 19 lies - but the prosecutors, who actually have to prove (document) the lies conclusively only bring five charges. Did they miss something in the other 14 instances that the learned eyes, ears and minds of the journalistic community were more capable of finding? Or is this a case study for the percentage of garbage you hear in the media that is actually closer to fiction than truth.
Lets' do the math shall we? Five for nineteen equals 26.3% or a .263 batting average, to put it in baseball terms. Now, while that may get you a cushy mega-dollars free agent contract if your agent is Scott Boras, it's not a particularly good average if your discussing the ethics of good journalism. Especially if the example cited is one that was held up as Nobel Prize winning journalism.
Now finally, the rules of the game will change somewhat. No longer will the government hold the Bonds camps hands behind their back, strung up like a human pinada for the media to take swings at with impunity. Now the other side gets to swing back. Now the selective leaks of information, and this is the only steroid case, of the many out there (Operation Equine, Grimsley, Radomski et. al.) that sprung selective leaks of information, are over. The case finally is in the shining light of the public domain. Hallelujah!!!
It's time to put up or shut up now, for everyone. For the Feds, for Michael Rains and lastly for the media. Although, given the ethics of the mainstream media, I doubt very much they will be willing to accept whatever decision the courts bring down.
Like the Bush Administration's handling of the Constitution, if the media doesn't like the decision, they'll just make up one that suits their agenda. In that regard, they are two parties who are made for each other and deserve the lasting contempt of fair minded Americans.
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