George Mitchell

A reflective and sometimes wistful-sounding Bill Clinton largely steered clear of campaign issues last night at a Manhattan event honoring him for his contribution to the Irish peace process.

Though he briefly thanked an introductory speaker for complimenting his wife's engagement with Irish issues, including the peace process, and made a glancing reference to her earlier appearance at the Irish American Presidential Forum, the former president made no other allusions to her candidacy.  read more »

It’s been a grievous few weeks for septuagenarian ex-Senator George Mitchell. He released a 409-page report on baseball’s colossal steroids problem, outing 88 drugged Major Leaguers—even gods like Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte. Critics accused him of McCarthyism for naming names without substantial proof, and on the opposite side he was scolded for suggesting players shouldn’t be punished for past doping.  read more »

While former Senator George Mitchell’s report on steroids and human growth hormone use in major league baseball was thorough, comprehensive and filled with enlightening anecdotes, any serious baseball observer of the past 20 years was left with more questions than answers. Here are the most pressing ones, in alphabetical order by those accused:

Did Manny Alexander, who had been groomed to succeed Cal Ripken Jr. at shortstop for the Orioles, really think steroids would make him more likely to play in thousands of consecutive games?  read more »

On Thursday morning, ESPN broke the news that Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte would be among the players named in George Mitchell's forthcoming report on steroid use in major league baseball.

Shortly thereafter, a link on the Drudge Report -- "complete steroid list" -- directed browsers to the Web site of WNBC, the New-York-based flagship station of the NBC network. There, justice reporter Jonathan Dienst had posted a roster of player names, "expected" to be included later in the afternoon in the official Mitchell Report, which included stars like Albert Pujols, Nomar Garciaparra, Johnny Damon, and Jason Varitek.

But soon after posting that list, Mr. Dienst received a phone call from an official at Major League Baseball questioning the accuracy of his reporting.  read more »

Players including prominent New York Yankees Roger Clemens, Jason Giambi and Andy Pettitte were named in former U.S. Senator George Mitchell's comprehensive report on steroids use in baseball released Thursday afternoon.

The 77 names ran the gamut, as Mitchell wrote in his report, “from players whose major league careers were brief to potential members of the Baseball Hall of Fame. They include both pitchers and position players, and their backgrounds are as diverse as those of all major league players.”  read more »

Players including prominent New York Yankees Roger Clemens, Jason Giambi and Andy Pettitte were named in former U.S. Senator George Mitchell's comprehensive report on steroids use in baseball released Thursday afternoon.

Below is the complete list of players implicated in the report. Depth of evidence varies, of course: Brian Roberts was named by a teammate through hearsay, while the report contains cancelled checks from Paul Lo Duca along with a handwritten thank-you note on Dodger Stadium stationary.  read more »

It looks like Bob Kerrey, the New School’s President since 2001, has backed off just a little from his earlier statements that he wouldn’t head back to Nebraska to run for the Senate next year.

This means several things:

1) Chuck Hagel is not running for re-election: Kerrey, who represented Nebraska with his fellow Vietnam veteran in the late ‘90s, had promised to write Hagel a check if he ran for a third term in 2008. Now Kerrey is saying publicly that he doesn’t think Hagel will run – which probably means that he got something approaching an iron-clad guarantee in private.

2) Chuck Hagel is either running for President or retiring from politics: If he wants to seek the White House, it almost certainly has to be as an independent. Given the shortcomings of the top G.O.P candidates, there’s a theoretical vacuum in the Republican race – but Hagel, who’s been branded disloyal for his war opposition, is unlikely to fill it (even though he would give the G.O.P. its best – and perhaps only – shot of retaining the White House next year). An independent bid would be tough because of Hagel’s modest name recognition and campaign treasury. A teaming with Mike Bloomberg seemed to be his most logical option, but did Bloomberg’s comments to Dan Rather kill that idea? Would a Hagel independent bid now be doomed from the start to Ross Perot ’96-land? Maybe, at 62, he will jut hang it up in ’08.

3) Democrats are poised to expand the ’08 Senate playing field: Nebraska is a red state, but Kerrey is one of the few Democrats who can win it. (He previously won the governorship in 1982 and Senate races in 1988 and 1994 and has never lost in the state.) The Republicans seem poised to nominate Jon Bruning, the conservative state attorney general, who had been planning to challenge Hagel from the right in the G.O.P. primary. Against the other Democrats who have been eyeing the race, Bruning would have been the favorite. Against Kerrey, he’s probably an underdog. Republicans have a lot more turf to defend than Democrats in ’08 – 22 seats to 12 – and Nebraska is yet another G.O.P. seat that the Democrats are primed to pick off. The G.O.P. will obviously brand Kerrey an opportunist and a sort-of carpet-bagger (remember how he flirted with running for mayor of New York in ’05?), but even if they beat him, they will have to expend considerable resources to do it.

4) The New School will need a new President: Is there another retired politician in New York who could take over for Kerrey? Doesn’t George Mitchell live here??