Legislative Hearings

Mike Wise, Washington Post It wasn't just that he almost certainly lied on Capitol Hill; it was the enormity of Roger Clemens' untruth, the Texas-sized audaciousness to think that his stature in society was big enough to get away with committing perjury. . . . As the contradictions kept coming Wednesday in the Rayburn House Office Building, Clemens came across as a megalomaniac, a habitual liar and a barrel-chested fraud.

The congressional committee showdown between Roger Clemens and his former trainer Brian McNamee produced new revelations in their ongoing exchange of opposing statements about whether the trainer injected the seven-time Cy Young Award winner with performance-enhancing drugs.

The man who has the power to immediately suggest federal law enforcement authorities launch an investigation into the truthfulness of Roger Clemens' sworn statements to Congress was noncommittal on that subject at the end of Wednesday's "robust discussion." "I don't know if that's the next step," said Rep. Henry A.

NO. 1: PETTITTE SAYS CLEMENS DISCLOSED HGH USE Andy Pettitte, left, made a claim in a sworn 105-page deposition that Clemens, his longtime teammate and friend, told him in 1999 that he had used human growth hormone. The committee praised Pettitte's honesty. -- NO. 2: THE JOSE CANSECO POOL PARTY McNamee told investigators Clemens attended a 1998 party at the Miami home of Jose Canseco, above, who told the pitcher how to use steroids. Canseco said Clemens was not there, but a Clemens nanny told Congress otherwise.

Usually in this country, baseball partisans are paying customers who shell out for peanuts and hot dogs, move the turnstile, crack open the Cracker Jack and root, root, root for the home team. They are not, traditionally speaking, members of Congress batting around the issue of Roger Clemens and steroids as if their party affiliation was a logo emblazoned across a cap and jersey.

Commissioners and union leaders of the four major professional sports leagues sat side by side before a House subcommittee Wednesday, debating whether drug testing recommended in the Mitchell Report should be enforced through federal legislation or remain a collective bargaining issue. But it wasn't MLB Commissioner Bud Selig spurring the charge against congressional involvement, nor was it baseball union leader Donald Fehr.

A man with an oversized top hat sat in the front row of a House subcommittee hearing Tuesday, munching on popcorn. Next to him was a woman wearing wings that let her fly out of her seat. And she was sitting by a large bumblebee. It wasn't an April Fool's Day stunt but the first time a congressional hearing was simulcast into the popular online virtual world called Second Life.

WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers examining the health and safety of thoroughbred racehorses on Thursday advocated for a centralized governing authority that would regulate the sport, as critics of the racing industry called for congressional intervention to create that body. "We're looking for Arnold Schwarzenegger's upper body and then we go to Don Knotts' legs and knees," said Jess Jackson, owner of Curlin, the 2007 Horse of the Year. "We don't need all of the inbreeding we have.

For years, congressional Democrats dreamed of getting a crack at a man they saw as a key player behind the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods against detainees in the war on terrorism -- methods the critics say amount to torture. On Thursday, they finally got their wish: Thickly bearded and glaring out through half-rimmed glasses, David S.

A congressional committee will investigate health insurers' practice of canceling coverage when policyholders get sick, its chairman said Thursday. The problem first came to light in California, but witnesses testifying before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee suggested that it was more widespread. The problem affects the individual insurance market, in which 14 million Americans, including nearly 3 million Californians, purchase medical benefits on their own.