The ongoing clown show that is the response of Congress and Major League Baseball to the game’s steroids crisis reached a new low this week with the announcement that the Government Reform Committee, as part of a perjury investigation, requested documents relating to disgraced Orioles slugger Rafael Palmeiro’s failed drug test, and that MLB and Palmeiro were complying with the groundless request.

The involvement of Congress this year with baseball’s drug problem has been almost entirely characterized by ridiculous posturing and outlandish grandstanding, but this latest absurdity is the clearest evidence yet of the essential unseriousness of our elected representatives, who really ought to be ashamed of themselves.

“If we did nothing,” Rep. Tom Davis, the committee’s chairman, asked a reporter, “I think we’d look like idiots. Don’t you?” The rejoinder writes itself.

To be clear, there should be little sympathy for Palmeiro here. Reports indicate that he tested positive for stanozolol, a fairly crude and antiquated anabolic steroid. There is really no out for Palmeiro, as no over-the-counter substances metabolize in the body into an analogue for stanozolol. Common sense indicates that when he sternly denied ever having taken steroids before a congressional panel on March 17, he was almost certainly lying.

Still, there’s little else to say to this other than, “So what?” Palmeiro tested positive after he testified. MLB’s records will show the date of the test, the results of the analysis of his bodily fluids, and various other information. Presumably, they will not contain a picture, with dateline prior to March 17 in the lower right-hand corner, showing Palmeiro cackling as he injects himself with a syringe marked “Winstrol,” nor any other actionable evidence that might be used in a perjury prosecution.

Of course, this request is not about perjury, but about congressmen trying to look tough, or at least not like idiots. A famous athlete has disgraced himself, ruined his reputation, exposed himself as a fraud and cheat, and is thought by all to have lied to Congress. This, apparently, is not punishment enough; Tom Davis must now have access to a full spectrum analysis of his urine so as to better come to the inevitable conclusion that there is not enough solid evidence to prove that Palmeiro was lying.

While the essential unseemliness and disproportion here is, I think, self-evident, what’s a bit less obvious is that the request of Palmeiro’s records, and baseball’s compliance with the request, will do some real damage to drug control in baseball.

One of the long-standing and reasonable objections to drug testing made by the players was that they wanted a reasonable expectation of privacy. The concern of players that a positive test would make their medical information a matter of public record and expose them to intrusion and humiliation was a reasonable one, and overcoming it to implement the present testing regime was a real step toward a drug-free sport. Now we see that a positive test, under certain circumstances, invalidates the right to privacy, and that baseball will roll over and give politicians private medical information under the right amount of pressure. No one could now blame the players for an increased wariness of drug testing, which would make strengthening the current regime more difficult than it needs to be.

Ultimately, though, the real problem here isn’t this sort of practical difficulty, nor even the more abstract problem presented by a Kabuki-like perjury investigation that everyone knows will lead to many righteous speeches and very little action. The real problem is that Congress, having once intervened in what was essentially a labor dispute, apparently now feels that it has a mandate to continue doing so.

This is not the case. Congress asked baseball to strengthen its testing regime; it complied. Should it decide it wants baseball to implement specific programs, it has, in its powers over tax law and indirect federal sports subsidies, the levers available to do so fairly. This does not mean that if a player fails a drug test, no matter what he has said in testimony, he should be the subject of further punitive measures by Congress.

Palmeiro is subject to various punishments under the agreement his union has collectively bargained with management, and he’s subject to the loss of his good name and reputation with the public. He shouldn’t have to come in for more punishment from the government, no matter the guise in which it comes.