Good Men Can Surely Agree
Georges Bush and Will may no longer see eye-to-eye on Iraq, but they'll always have steroids! Here's Bush, via his mouthpiece:
[T]he President believes it's important for Major League Baseball -- management and the players' union -- to act by taking strong steps to address the problem. Professional baseball players are people our children look up to. Players use drugs -- players who use drugs undermine the efforts of parents and coaches to send the right message to our children. Drug use also poses some real risks, health risks to athletes, and it also diminishes the integrity of sports. And the President has made it very clear that he believes Major League Baseball needs to act to address the problem.
And the bow-tie:
Athletes chemically propelled to victory do not merely overvalue winning, they misunderstand why winning is properly valued. Professional athletes stand at an apex of achievement because they have paid a price in disciplined exertion -- a manifestation of good character. They should try to perform unusually well. But not unnaturally well. Drugs that make sport exotic drain it of its exemplary power by making it a display of chemistry rather than character -- actually, a display of chemistry and bad character.
Will, to his credit, decries "the idea that everything is the federal government's business." He's on far shakier ground when he asserts that "only one radical demarcation has disrupted the game's continuity -- the divide, around 1920, between the dead ball and lively ball eras," but that's a whole 'nother debate.
Dayn Perry wrote about the "pumped-up hysteria" over steroids for Reason's January 2003 issue, and Jacob Sullum questioned why sports should be drug-free this January.
