I know the media adores John McCain, but this national AP story, which seems to be popping up all over, is just silly.
Sen. John McCain, the straight-talking Republican who often challenges the GOP establishment, has taken on a headline-grabbing issue steroids in baseball and generated talk of a presidential bid in 2008.
Amid revelations about baseball’s biggest names, McCain has threatened to push legislation early next year if Major League Baseball and the players do not clean up their act. McCain long has advocated harsher penalties for athletes caught using performance-enhancing drugs.
First, the idea that an issue of fleeting importance in 2004, involving baseball no less, could propel a presidential candidate in 2008 is pretty ridiculous. Second, McCain doesn’t really need to talk about steroids to be famous; he’s already a rare national figure.
And finally, wasn’t the steroid issue Bush’s idea? From this year’s State of the Union:
“To help children make right choices, they need good examples. Athletics play such an important role in our society, but, unfortunately, some in professional sports are not setting much of an example. The use of performance-enhancing drugs like steroids in baseball, football, and other sports is dangerous, and it sends the wrong message — that there are shortcuts to accomplishment, and that performance is more important than character. So tonight I call on team owners, union representatives, coaches, and players to take the lead, to send the right signal, to get tough, and to get rid of steroids now.”
Indeed, when Bush emphatically spoke on the issue, most of us thought he sounded kind of ridiculous devoting 66 words to steroids, but only nine words to nuclear proliferation in North Korea. At the time, Dan Drezner asked, “[W]hat the hell are steroids in professional sports doing in the friggin’ State of the Union?” Slate’s Tim Noah noted the oddity of Bush “calling for an end to steroid abuse in professional sports, an issue completely outside the realm of government at the federal, state, or local level.”
And now McCain can use steroids to make a presidential bid more compelling? I don’t think so.
The point isn’t that Bush came up with this cutting-edge political issue before it was salient; the point is that there’s no reason in the world to believe McCain is going to ride this pony to the GOP nomination.