Clemens hearings: Despite advance brown-nosing, perjury is in the air

One Congressman on Henry Waxman’s committee, Edolphus Towns, indicated after a pre-hearings schmooze with Roger Clemens he thinks Brian McNamee perjured himself.

Meanwhile, somebody WILL be charged with perjury after this is done. As ESPN’s live blog indicates, Waxman himself said that during the start of the hearing.

That said, my take on what ESPN has up so far? Clemens is perjuring himself big-time. He has already directly accused Andy Pettitte, whose own testimony was under oath, of lying:

Rep. Elijah Cummings started his questioning by making sure Clemens knew he was under oath — “and you know what that means? Is that correct?”

“Yes, sir,” the Rocket replied.

Rep. Cummings then praised Pettitte as being “one of the most respected players in the major leagues and one of the most honest people in baseball.”
“I would agree with that. Yes, sir,” Clemens responded.

But when Cummings then confronted Clemens with Pettitte's testimony that the Rocket had told him he’d used HGH, and asked Clemens if this was true, Clemens gave him a stern, “It is not.”

“So you did not tell Mr. Pettitte you used Human Growth Hormone?”

“I did not,” Clemens said.

Well, there you have it. Either Pettitte is one of multiple sources lying about Clemens, or vice versa.

People who have read my posts on this issue know what my take is.

As I said before, the only diff between Clemens and Bonds is that, in terms of PR, Bonds is sullen and Clemens is smarmy.

Update/wrapup: While McNamee was, at best, a B-grade witness, it's clear that Clemens and his pseudo-faulty memory are one big effing lie.

Other issues:
1. Clemens “Nannygate” interference comes awfully close, in this layman’s eyes, to obstruction of justice.
2. McNamee and Clemens indeed have both looked like they’ve tried to trap each other on taped telephone calls. Clemens’ motive is obvious, but what was McNamee’s? Extortion? Protection from the feds?
3. If you ask me now who benefited more from juicing, Bonds or Clemens, my answer is Clemens.