Remember when Monica Goodling's lawyer was shedding crocodile tears over Congress' insistance that his client, who was then still an employee of the Justice Department, testify under oath about her actions in the firing of several U.S. Attorneys? Well apparently, when the issue is really important, like, say, whether baseball players have the right to remain silent before the Commissioner's Officer over their alleged use of anabolic steroids, he's much more flexible in his devotion to the Fifth Amendment:

The lawyer who headed baseball's investigation of Pete Rose wants commissioner Bud Selig to suspend players who don't co-operate with the steroids probe spearheaded by former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell.

John Dowd said Selig should try to overturn the 1980 arbitration decision in a case involving Ferguson Jenkins, a native of Chatham, Ont. The ruling upheld a player's right to refuse to answer questions from baseball management if it jeopardized his legal position in a criminal case.

"I tell you what, it's time that stuff was challenged," Dowd said Tuesday in a telephone interview during which he criticized the players' union. "They already have too much power on this whole (steroids) issue anyway, in my opinion. And they've abused it. It's really disgraceful what the union's done here."

Dowd's a real piece of work. He was also the hired gun for Senator John McCain awhile back, defending him during his Keating Five problems, and when McCain's wife was under legal investigation for an addiction to pain killers, induced a prosecutor in Arizona to begin a baseless extortion inquiry into her chief accuser. And he was also co-counsel defending Vernon Jordan during the Clinton Impeachment inquiry. So the man does have an understanding of who the Bill of Rights is supposed to protect: powerful D.C. insiders and government officials.