Bonds = Satan?

Due to the scant real news involving college football right now, I thought I'd tackle an interesting article from ESPN today. In the article, Jeff Pearlman argues rather strongly that (1) Barry Bonds is an evil human being and (2) that Barry should admit his alleged steriod use in the hope that it will somehow prevent the two San Francisco Chronicle writers, Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, from going to jail for refusing to divulge who leaked grand jury testimony regarding Bonds to them.

Point (1) is pretty much a given. If someone who cheats at his occupation, cheats on his wife and lies to federal authorities were anyone other than an extremely talented record-setting sports star, we would all readily agree that said person was a miserable human being. You readily condemn "that guy" you know at work who cheats on his expense reports while also trying to pick up the waitress during happy hour. Let's not pretend Bonds is any different here.

Point (2), however, is much more interesting. Let's put aside whether such an admission would spare the writers the Oz-like fate they are facing. The result of such an admission is not relevant to the larger issue. Print journalists are currently decrying the persecution of the two writers by claiming "freedom of the press" and making analogies to Watergate and the Pentagon Papers. Please. Such an argument cheapens not only what the reporters who broke those stories went through but also the idea of a "free press."

The government is not after the two reporters for the information they wrote in the newspaper while ostensibly doing their jobs. Rather, the government wants to know who leaked the grand jury testimony to the reporters, which the reporters put into a book. I have not heard that the reporters wrote the book for free. The government wants to know who broke the law and gave the reporters information that they subsequently wrote a profitable book about. Doesn't seem unreasonable to me. Someone explain to me how this is different from insider trading.

And please stop with the comparisons to Watergate and the Pentagon Papers. Those were issues where the government itself was lying to the public and serious issues of national security were involved. Everyone does not have the right to know everything.

The serious issue here is not what was said at the grand jury but that it did not remain secret. The judicial system has lots of problems -- but one of the good things about it is the ability of people to testify truthfully before a grand jury without fear of having their testimony published.