NPR: Democratic Debate Overshadowed by Steroid Report

Democratic Debate Overshadowed by Steroid Report

It's a pretty good bet that the Democratic presidential candidates won't be humming "Take me out to the ballgame" during breaks in this afternoon's debate in Iowa. In fact, they'll probably be wishing that baseball would just go away until spring training.

There is every likelihood that this afternoon's debate, the last Democratic one scheduled before the January 3 caucuses in Iowa, will be overshadowed by the release of former Democratic Senator George Mitchell's investigation into steroid use in baseball. The report is being released at the same time that the debate starts, 2 p.m. EST.

And if today's affair is anything like Tuesday's rather tame, dry Republican debate in Johnson City, Iowa, it would have trouble generating much enthusiasm anyway.

Meanwhile, NPR's Martin Kaste reports for Morning Edition that things have been rather civil in Iowa between Democrats, at least on TV. There have been very few negative ads so far, as candidates have gone for inspiration over attack. Brooks Jackson, director of factcheck.org, a nonpartisan site that truth-squads the claims made in campaign ads, even went to far as to tell Martin that most of the ads have been "... pretty much content-free and information-challenged."

The candidates probably remember what happened right around this time during the last Democratic caucuses. Then-top contenders Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt went after each other so hard with negative ads, that "notoriously friendly" Iowans (as they were recently described by one national TV reporter) were turned off, and gave most of their votes to John Kerry and John Edwards.

Once bitten, twice shy.

Today's debate can be seen on CNN and will last for 90 minutes. Note that it will be Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel free - they have not been invited to take part in the debate.

10:37 AM ET | 12-13-2007 | permalink

Comments (Send a comment)

Why do baseball players have to be sworn in in front of congress and oil executives do not? When there is a reasonable answer to that question, the relevance of baseball to American policy will be considered.

Sent by Tim Schaiberger | 11:38 AM ET | 12-13-2007

Its not a congressional duty to manage professional sports standards. What a waste of time! My votes won't go to any representative that attended one of the steroid hearings.

Sent by Tony | 4:27 PM ET | 12-13-2007

Sent by fred call: Wait a minute here this makes it sound like professional athletes taking steroids might somehow be wrong or something. Don't they make you smart and strong, like President Bush?

Hey, gang. I must be getting famous. I got someone impersonating me.

This is totally cool. I got a doppelganger.

So, Fred Call. How're ya doing? You and me must be the twins who were seperated at birth. Now, after all these years, we meet.

Anyway, you must be the Jesus Fred Call brother. Cause I'm the Satan Fred Call brother.

By the way, have you seen mom lately?

fred call (the other Fred Call, the one who is Satan)

PS...Hey, the Jesus Fred Call, did you know John Mellenkamp has a guy who dresses up just like him and sits in the front row of all his concerts.

Sent by fred call | 12:30 AM ET | 12-15-2007

About the most intriguing articles I've read about this recent baseball steroid scandal is the one about how Barry Bonds must be the happiest baseball players going today.

And I'm not going to pick out any one article, cause I've read them from everyone from MSN sports to the Huffington Post. Barry Bonds is getting the last laugh cause now all these other players are getting the bad limelight.

Whatever happens to Bonds in his latest indictment is still up to the judge and jury.

For now, Baseball commissioners and managers and owners are all being accused of having been too lax and so on. It's kind of amazing the way the pendulum swings, the white collar type and the coaches are getting the burn.

Meanwhile, somehow football continues to escape all this bad publicity. Not that I find it humanly unusual that a man who weighs in at 340 pounds can cover forty yards in 4.3 seconds.

Behind it all, the truth is that the fans do not pay big bucks to go sit in the stands to watch professional midgets wrestle. If you take forty pounds of muscle off the average baseball player, and a hundred and forty pounds of muscle off the average football player, you take one hundred and forty thousand paying fans out of the stands.

Let's be real: there's not an innocent left in professional sports. Not when China is putting out so many seven foot tall basketball players. Must be some high powered rice their growing over there in Beijing.

fred camorra call

Sent by fred camorra call | 5:26 PM ET | 12-15-2007

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