Demagogue

Matthew McConaughey's persuasive skills are no better than his acting skills. The actor and sports fan wrote this letter to the editor of USA Today (published Wed.) in which he takes up for another multi-millionaire — baseball player Barry Bonds:

Ironically, in a nation whose judicial system says we're all innocent until proven guilty, we like to think of him as guilty — even if he just hit an innocent home run.

McConaughey is correct in saying that Bonds has not been proven in a court or formal proceeding of having used steroids. But there is accumulating evidence that certainly points in that direction.

In 2004, the New York Yankees' Jason Giambi testified that he acquired steroids from Bonds' personal trainer. According to a recently published book by two San Francisco Chronicle reporters, Bonds used a cocktail of performance-enhancing drugs for at least five seasons beginning in 1998. Until an official inquiry is done on this matter, intelligent people will naturally weigh the evidence that's out there and draw their own conclusions.

Let's get real. During the first 10 seasons he played in the major leagues, Bonds only once hit more than 37 homeruns (HRs). We're talking about the years — between age 21 and 35 — when Bonds should have been at the peak of his ability. McConaughey and other Bonds apologists would like us to believe that a ballplayer's HR production suddenly soars after he turns 35.

Some Bonds apologists don't care to argue the particulars. They simply don't want others to disturb their feel-good, fantasy world — "sure, it's a sham, but let us have our Kodak moment."

Steroids or not, this man has more than the ability, he has the talent, to be the greatest home run hitter in baseball history.

McConaughey wants us to believe ("Steroids or not ...") that the use of performance-enhancing drugs is irrelevant. To the contrary, Bonds' HR-hitting "ability" cannot be accurately assessed without knowing if he used or is still using perfomance-enhancing drugs to add strength where his ability stops.

... We should — and do — all root for Barry Bonds to break every record in baseball's home run history. It's even more than what we love about the game, it's what we, Americans, love about success.

McConaughey purports to know that "all" sports fans are rooting for Bonds to "break every record." I don't remember getting McConaughey's survey. Of course, McConaughey wrote this letter precisely because all of us are not rooting for Bonds to do so.

And what the hell is that last sentence supposed to mean? Exactly what is the it that we "love about the game" and "love about success"?

It makes as much sense as the silly aphorism with which McConaughey concluded his letter:

Just keep livin'.

Is this his way of telling us he wished he could have played the lead role in "Forrest Gump"?