[smc]

I've been giving a lot more thought today to Mark McGwire's interview with Bob Costas. It may still be reasonable to believe that McGwire began taking steroids because of injuries, his refusal to acknowledge even the possibility that the drugs may have contributed positively to his performance numbers renders his apology meaningless. So now we have an admission of guilt, but not the apology that would come with a full confession of the facts.

I am not alone in this assessment. I found this evening that most of the commentators were saying virtually the same thing.

Here's some of what McGwire said when asked by Costas whether the drugs enhanced his performance. Insisting they did not, he said: ""I just believed in my ability, and my hand to eye coordination, and the strength of my mind. I developed them on their own"

Asked whether he would have had the same level of home run productivity if he "had never touched anything more than a protein shake," McGwire said yes, insisting he could have surpassed Babe Ruth's productivity without the drugs.

Keith Olbermann made a very good point: while some speculate whether he might have hit, say, 40 without the steroids rather than 70 in a season, the truth is that if he took the drugs for the reason he claims -- for his health, so that he could be healthy enough to play baseball -- the drugs actually enabled him to hit any number over zero.

Clearly, McGwire had no choice but to "come clean" (his words) because of his recent hiring by the St. Louis Cardinals as hitting coach.

Today comes the revelation that McGwire's "crisis manager" consultant for yesterday's events is Ari Fleischer, George W. Bush's first press secretary of his presidency. As Keith Olbermann put it tonight (I am paraphrasing), now we know that Fleischer's worse "hit and miss" wasn't "Mission Accomplished."