After my post from yesterday, I talked to a couple of people about the New York Times article that reported that Sammy Sosa was one of the 104 players that tested positive for steroids in 2003. I also had the chance to read an article in the Daily Herald (suburban Chicago) that indicated that Congress may look into the possibility of filing perjury charges against Sosa. This got me thinking…
Why should we believe the New York Times article? I mean, we’re acting like it’s true because it’s in the newspaper, but why should we believe it. The source of the story is a lawyer involved in the government’s investigation of steroids in baseball and the documents involved have been sealed by the court. So if we are to believe the story in the New York Times, we have to believe an attorney who takes his job and the oath he took so lightly that he has chosen to violate the law in order to make the Sosa-took-steroids information public. Someone who is willing to violate the law and disregard their oath doesn’t seem like the most credible person to me.
I mean, think about it. A lawyer who is willing to violate federal law and disregard an order made by a federal court in order to leak information about the behavior of a baseball player is like calling out the National Guard to break up a prayer group meeting. Violating federal law by a lawyer seems like a much more serious matter than a baseball player taking steroids, even if said ball player did lie to Congress.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying Sosa is innocent of the charges. All I’m saying is that the person or persons who leaked the information to the New York Times isn’t very credible in my opinion. And since the person or persons would only reveal the infomation on condition of anonymity because they knew that revealing the information was a violation of the law, I don’t think we should automatically take their word as gospel. We may find out sometime in the future that Sosa did in fact take steroids, but why should we believe it now?
The second part of this is Congress looking into perjury charges against Sosa. Honestly, does Congress have so much free time and money that they can devote the human and financial resources of the U.S. Government to such a relatively trivial issue. If they spend the time and money to investigate Sosa and maybe even throw him in jail, what have we gained? Is the nation safer? Will the economy improve? Will we have health care reform? Will there be more money for education, or GM or any of the banks? The answer to all of these questions is a resounding, “no.” I really think it would be better for our nation and our economy if Congress would focus on more important, pressing issues than whether or not Sammy Sosa ever took steroids.
Combining the two issues, why should Congress believe that Sammy Sosa took steroids? Just because it was in the New York Times? I certainly hope they don’t launch investigations everytime the NYT prints information provided by a confidential source. Seriously, it should take more than a newspaper story to launch a federal investigation.
On second thought, maybe Congress should look into the matter. They should find out who the lawyer is that leaked the information and hold him responsible. They should make an example of him. They should make it clear that when a court seals documents, the documents should stay sealed. In my mind, this is by far the most important part of the story.
