Clemens and McNamee Testify

Both testified yesterday before a House Committee, and both stuck to their stories concerning Clemens' use of illegal, performance-enhancing drugs. The only piece of new information seems to be that Andy Pettite stated in his deposition that Clemens had used such drugs. Clemens response was that Andy must have "misheard", or "misremembered".

What was interesting was the breakdown along party lines. The Republicans came down hardest on McNamee, one calling him a liar to his face, while the Democrats gave Clemens a hard time. It would seem that this is not a political issue. The party-line breakdown reminds me of a hearing I listened to recently in which a Committee was examining the issue of privatization of IRS collection activities. (This would seem to be a dull issue, but I was mesmerized and listened for hours.) The Republicans were supportive of privatization, while the Democrats opposed it and pointed out the $65 million start-up costs, the problem with the caller being unable to identify what it was about, until verifying the identity of the callee (creating a chicken and egg situation), and basically the idea that the same activity could be done more cheaply and effectively simply by the IRS hiring more collectors and doing the work in-house.

Again, we see this odd division along party lines on what seems to be a non-political issue. One has to conclude that there is something fundamentally different between the world-views of Republicans and Democrats. I recall when my kids were little and used to ask me what the difference was between the parties. I always found it difficult to give a clear and unbiased answer to that, and I'm not sure I could even today. I do know, however, that there definitely *is* a big difference between the two parties.