WASHINGTON — It is now becoming ever clearer that the last
decade of the 20th century could go down in history as the Decade
of Illusion. There was the tech bubble whose detumescence was
predicted by some of the very same engineering geniuses who had
created the technological marvels that it was based on, for
instance, Bob Metcalfe, inventor of Ethernet and a major force in
the creation of the Internet. He predicted the bubble’s burst
almost to the day.
Another of the illusions of the 1990s was that with the fall of
Communism barbarism vanished. The world would be safe. Our military
budget could be trimmed. All that was necessary to deal with those
quaint Islamic zanies across the sea was an occasional cruise
missile sent their way, preferably when our aggrieved president was
about to appear before a grand jury or be impeached. There was also
the illusion that a chief executive’s lies were harmless and
perhaps even a private matter.
Now some of the liars of the decade have been sentenced to long
stretches in the calaboose. Their lies conduced to corporate
collapse and the loss of millions to investors and to pension
funds. This week with the suspension of Rafael Palmeiro from Major
League Baseball many of the baseball records racked up in the 1990s
are suspected of being illusory. Quite probably many of them were
the product of illegal steroid use. The baseball heroes of the
1990s simply lied about their performances. What other revelations
will be coming from the Decade of Illusions?
Palmeiro flunked a drug test sometime in recent months, though
he continued to thrill his Baltimore Orioles fans before his
positive test for steroids was made public. On July 15 fans and
teammates celebrated his 3000th hit with gaudy fanfare. Major
League Baseball took out newspaper ads congratulating him, though
it is reported that league officials was aware he had tested
positive for steroids. Palmeiro graciously accepted all the
laudations. How could he do this while knowing that officials were
wise to him?
In the 1990s we called this “compartmentalizing.” It was
approved by journalists and public figures alike. President Bill
Clinton executed his presidential tasks exuberantly day in and day
out while retaining subpoenaed documents from prosecutors, coaching
witnesses to deceive, and lying brazenly to his staff and the
public. He compartmentalized and to this day there are public
figures who admire his sang-froid. They would agree with
John Harris’s assessment of him in Harris’s recent encomium,
The Survivor, as being one of “the two most important
political figures of their generation” — the other being, who
else, Hillary.
One of his most memorable statements that will ring down from
the Decade of Illusions is: “I want you to listen to me. I’m going
to say this again. I did not have sexual relations with that
woman…Miss Lewinsky.” The Boy President said that glaring into
the cameras on national television and pointing his finger for
emphasis. Later he failed his drug test, or rather his DNA test.
Yet he is still arguing that the statement is somehow true.
Palmeiro is one of Clinton’s finest students. Under oath before
a Congressional Committee on March 17 he declared: “I have never
used steroids, period. I do not know how to say it more clearly
than that. Never.” He too glared and pointed his finger
emphatically. Now that he is suspended after that failed test he
argues with Clintonian indefatigability: “I’ve never intentionally
used steroids. Never. Ever. Period.” The New York Times
reports that the steroid he tested positive for is stanozolol. It
is unimaginable that an adult would not know that he was taking it.
Use of it in 1988 cost Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson his Olympic
gold medal.
Tom Knott, the superb sports writer for the Washington
Times, suspects that Palmeiro’s hitting feats owe something to
his teaming up with Jose Canseco in the Decade of Illusions. Knott
further seems to suspect that many of the home-run marvels of the
1990s were fueled by steroids. Think of it, a whole decade of
baseball records thrown into a twilight of doubt because the rules
were compartmentalized. Slowly but steadily those who cast doubt on
the marvels of that decade are being vindicated.
