Written by:

Wallace Matthews

January 9, 2008

This has absolutely nothing to do with whether he did or did not use steroids, HGH or Preparation H. It has everything to do with the way he has reacted to being accused of it.

He had a rare opportunity this week. Not once, but twice, he was given a forum to garner some sympathy and perhaps a little of that benefit of the doubt to which he believes he is entitled. Twice, he was given large, priceless swaths of TV time to tell his side of the story. Each time, he came off looking worse than the time before.

 He lost me for good near the end of his "60 Minutes" interview, when he went into his tirade about not being able to defend himself because, according to him, "a lot of people have already made their decisions."

"And that's our country, isn't it?" he whined to Mike Wallace "Guilty before innocent. That's the way our country works now."

At that point it occurred to me: You are our country, Roger Clemens. He asks, "Is this what our country has come to?" The answer is no. Roger Clemens is what our country has come to.

Lots of money for doing next to nothing. A sense of entitlement out of all proportion to what you are really worth, or what you really contribute to society. No accountability for your own actions. Misplaced hostility -- mostly toward the media. A desire to bully others but no guts for a fair fight. Notice how, at the news conference he and his lawyers called in an effort to clear his name, Clemens stalked off the podium rather than answer some very legitimate questions.

It was the equivalent of beaning Mike Piazza when he couldn't find any other way to stop him.

In that moment, I recognized that Clemens is not so different from a lot of people in this great land of ours, who somehow have come to believe it's OK to get what they want by any means necessary.

Need to win an election? Lie about your opponent. Need to start a war? Lie about your hand-picked enemy. Need Hannah Montana tickets? Fake a story about your husband's death in Iraq and hope to cash in on it. Need a few extra mph on your fastball? Find them in a syringe, and then brag about your workout routine.

Too many of us have forgotten that if you have to cheat or cut corners to do something, you're not really doing it. And too many of us never have understood that to begin with.

There was a time when Clemens could do it the right way, without help. But the evidence is strong that for him, that time passed about 10 years ago. Still, he clings to the conceit that somehow, he is better/more capable/more entitled than anyone else, because to admit otherwise would be owning up not only to his humanity, but his fraudulence.

And when confronted with the facts, or even a story contrary to his own, Clemens did what a lot of celebrities do these days. He stormed off muttering something about how he can't get a fair shake.

In truth, people like Clemens get a fairer shake than anyone else. He had the nerve to bristle the other day when his lawyer mentioned "pampered athletes," and there's a good reason. Clemens has no idea how pampered he really is.

Then he tried to swap out the word "pampered" for "blessed." But he has no idea how blessed he really is, either.

He believes he's under scrutiny now because he's Roger Clemens. He's too dense to understand that the only reason he has avoided scrutiny this long is because he's Roger Clemens.

He asks why he can't catch a break despite "all he has done for baseball," never once considering what baseball has done for him, namely pay him more than $150 million during the course of his career. That includes the $18 million-plus he pocketed last year for going 6-6.

Now, confronted with strong allegations of cheating, breaking the law and compromising the integrity of the game he professes to love, Clemens acts as if he doesn't have to answer for anything. His lame weaseling on suitable punishments for steroid users -- "it's a self-inflicted penalty" -- is a symbol of the no-fault generation, a variation on baseball's "Let's just move on," a euphemism for "Just let us get away with it, OK?"

You and I know plenty of people like Roger Clemens. We read and hear about them every day. Their names are Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Don Imus, Kenneth Lay and Priscilla Ceballos, the mother who would stoop to anything to get her daughter tickets to a concert. They are all the people who take and take and take -- take everything but the blame.

If Clemens is still wondering about what our country has come to, there's an easy way for him to find out the answer.

Just look in the mirror.