Is it over yet?

Charles Barkley once said:

"I don't believe professional athletes should be role models, I believe parents should be role models."

I do agree with Charles for the most part, especially on a day when an athlete who is a role model, an icon to millions of adults and children across the country, is sitting in front of Congress defending his extremely successful career that is now under a microscope to the tenth degree. Some of you are like my friend Joe, you are in disgust that the Congress, who we elected to their jobs, are wasting countless hours on an issue that has no effect on my life, your life, and your children’s lives. Poverty, War, Unemployment, Foreclosures, and many more problems are not being solved today in this country. Instead the United States Congress has gathered to talk to Roger Clemens and his former trainer to find out who is lying about the use of anabolic steroids and human growth hormone by the Rocket during his career. This is what is going on in Washington during the most important presidential campaign of the last 25 years.

If you would all like to see something funny, copy and paste this site in your browser http://oversight.house.gov/ On the right sidebar of the site you'll notice the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform lists their "KEY ISSUES" The investigation of former state department inspector general Howard J. Krongard, Iraq reconstruction, Administration oversight( a section in which this sentence is included and I quote "Congress has a responsibility under the Constitution to conduct oversight of the executive branch" hard to do when your trying to get Clemens' autograph for your son ) and the White House use of Private e-mail. None of which is being worked on today, OH NO, today we want to get in the newspaper, have our names in the public, and hear ourselves talk, and that is todays KEY ISSUE. Under the important stories on their homepage you have to scroll down to the fifth story to find the first thing not involving baseball and steroids, Committee Subpoenas Iraq Embassy Department, now which is more important? You be the judge.

We live in a country whose priorities are so out of sync that in all honesty it makes me ashamed and I'm not the only one. So today has come and gone but what have we learned? We have no exit strategy for Iraq, the housing market has yet to hit rock bottom, and we still don't know if Roger Clemens took steroids. Congratulations, another day shot to hell. Sports and sports entertainment are meant to give us all a break, a break from our busy and stressful days at real work, a time to kick back and enjoy the sports we played as children, but that can't happen. The Media and Politicians who love to be heard would rather that we see the darker side of the world we live in, not so we know that the game we are watching is "true and reliable" but so that their pockets are lined with cash and we know their name as well as the star athletes they never could be. From Henry Waxman to Carolyn Maloney thank you for nothing, and I hope you lose sleep cashing that check that we paid you with today, it was hardly earned.