“No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.”

— United States Constitution, Article I

“If you had 89 players here, I’d feel a lot better about this hearing. But we have just one.”

— Rep. Christopher Shays, Republican of Connecticut

Rep. Henry Waxman of California explained yesterday that he had the hearing on steroids in baseball only at the behest of Roger Clemens, the pitcher who wanted a chance to clear his name. Mr. Clemens emerged from the hearing yesterday to pronounce himself “grateful” and “thankful” for the opportunity, but one of his lawyers disputed the idea that the hearing as it took place was what Mr. Clemens wanted. “My colleague and I said we did not need a hearing,” Mr. Clemens’s lawyer, Lanny Breuer, said after the hearing. No doubt. The Constitution is clear, as Congressman Shays recognized. It doesn’t say no bill of attainder shall be passed unless a baseball star asks for it. It says no bill of attainder shall be passed, period; in other words, that Congress shall not act as a prosecutor against an individual. That, inescapably, was what Mr. Waxman’s House committee was doing yesterday. The fact is that we don’t know who did what in respect of steroids, and Congress isn’t the place to find out.