A Meeting of Aging Lions

Clemens has to make the case that McNamee is a liar, which requires robust language that carries with it risk. According to the New York Times, McNamee's lawyer has already warned that an accusation against McNamee will be met with a defamation of character lawsuit, which could mean that Clemens would have to repeat his story under oath.

Clemens and his lawyers are unlikely to want that to happen. Not before a congressional committee, where McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro discovered that telling the truth and telling an apparent lie can be equally fatal to reputations. Not in front of a grand jury, even if its target is McNamee, because, as Bonds discovered, the feds have no sense of humor about shadings of the truth. And not in a deposition, regardless of whether Clemens sues McNamee or vice versa. You don't have to be a legal scholar to appreciate the risk in having Clemens exposed to a talented trial lawyer; you only had to watch New York Knicks coach Isiah Thomas's self-immolation while defending his behavior and that of his Madison Square Garden bosses during a deposition in a recent sexual harassment case.

To the extent that so many fans side with Clemens, it's because they view what has happened to him as a perversion of the American justice system, in which, at least in the Civics 101 version, a man is innocent until he's proven guilty. Unfortunately, most of those fans confuse everyday American life with that justice system. Clemens's current liability is in the court of public opinion, which doesn't adhere to the same lofty standards that American jurisprudence purports to.

In the end, perhaps the only way to change all that is for Clemens to use the "60 Minutes" platform to propel his case into the justice system. To sue or at least call McNamee out and risk a lawsuit in return may be his only recourse if Clemens truly hopes for vindication. We live in a cynical age, one in which the president of Iran can posture to Mike Wallace as the voice of reason, and we tend not to believe people's self-serving pronouncements unless there is jeopardy attached to them. And not even always then.

© 2008