The More Talk About Andy Pettitte, The Worse It Gets for Roger Clemens

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If there's one thing we've learned definitively from the Clemens hearings this morning, it's that Roger Clemens' fans are alive and well on the House Oversight Committee. McNamee has his share of backers behind the microphones, too, but they don't seem nearly as adamant about smearing Clemens as Clemens' fans are about smearing McNamee. McNamee has been called a litany of names today: drug pusher, liar, fraud, and so on. Roger Clemens has been asked what jersey he'll wear into the Hall of Fame. The slurping sounds have been more disgusting than any "palpable mass on the buttox" could be.

But it's also clear that those attacking Clemens (namely Rep. John Tierney of Massachusetts) understand the score: The less they focus on McNamee's credibility (or lack thereof) and instead peer at Andy Pettitte's apparently damaging testimony, the worse things get for Roger Clemens.

Those attacking McNamee get it too. In their attacks today, they've done well to ask less about McNamee's involvement with Roger Clemens and instead screech at the trainer about his record of lying to reporters (before he was under oath, of course) and about the doubt surrounding his five-year-old syringes. It's been a good, and oftentimes entertaining, sidetrack, but it doesn't change the underlying matter at hand: Once Andy Pettitte's deposition is released, things are going to go even further south for Roger Clemens.