Opinion : The three words members of Congress should have said to Roger Clemens

Now that Roger Clemens has been found not guilty of lying to Congress, one thing is clear as we approach what we can only hope is the end of the issue of performance-enhancing substances: Nobody will ever, ever accuse Congress of using them.

The issue is not whether Clemens lied to Congress. Lying to Congress is like passing gas in a pigpen.

The true issue is this: Why does Congress, which can’t balance a budget or figure out how to use America’s vast resources to make our nation energy-independent, spend so much time demanding the attention of professional athletes?

The answer is simple: Congress does nonsense like this to detract the attention of the U.S. public from the things it can’t, or simply refuses, to do.

The strange and funny thing about this is that Congress is made up of people who are pretty smart. I have met many men who represent Iowa in Congress: Senators Charles Grassley and Tom Harkin, and Representatives Dave Nagle, Jim Nussle, Leonard Boswell, Bruce Braley. All of them seem intelligent, and genuinely concerned about Iowa. I can only believe that the people who live in other states choose intelligent people to represent them in Washington, D.C.

But there seems to be a sign over the door of the Capitol: Nemo tam stultus, ut omnes

In other words: None of us is as stupid as all of us. Somehow, the institution of Congress manages to lure 535 of the brightest minds from all 50 states to Washington, D.C., where this collection of smarties does some of the most stupid things imaginable.

How did the political body that helped lead us through World War II, then have the foresight to pass the GI Bill and the Eisenhower Highway System become so incompetent?       

Maybe it’s the fact that one of the big jobs of Congressmen is raising money. Each one has a quota, and spends countless hours trying to raise donations to cover the expense telling voters how good their party is and how dreadfully awful their opponents are.

Or maybe it’s the fact that Congressmen know that passing a law that certain people like will result in a very high-paying job in the lobbying industry. Remember Jim Nussle, the first-term Congressman who put a bag over his head to illustrate how incompetent Congress had become because of its system of protecting itself? He is now a lobbyist, whose web site brags about his connections in Congress, and how if you hire him, he can put those connections to work on behalf of you and your business.

Maybe it’s also the size of government, and the ridiculous complexity of national laws, rules and regulations. We failed to notice the signs 20 years ago, when the federal government started telling us how much water to use to flush our toilets and insisted that a door should look like a door.

But instead of trying to fix its own problems, Congress hauls guys like Clemens to its committees, in a showboating attempt to show America it is actually doing something to deserve being re-elected.

The only exchange that Congress should have had with Clemens should have taken place in one of the back rooms, where members make deals in private: That conversation about performance-enhancing substances should have included just three words, spoken by members of Congress (the same three words, by the way, they say every day to lobbyists and rich supporters): Give us some.