There have been, of late, no dearth of stunning scenes involving athletes and performance-enhancing drugs--from Barry Bonds being indicted to Marion Jones being sentenced to jail. But none were any more remarkable than the sight of Roger Clemens, a man who throughout his career has shown a limited capacity for humility, strolling around the corridors of Congress, beseeching its members, like any high-rent lobbyist, to believe his version of the truth: that he never took performance-enhancing drugs.

We can no longer be shocked by the notion that somebody might lie under oath to the Congressional committee investigating the use of steroids and other drugs in baseball. It almost certainly happened two years ago, the first go-around of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on this issue. But while we suspected one or more of the players testifying that day was lying, we couldn't be sure. (Ironically, the most damning testimony on that occasion was Mark McGwire's and he clearly told the truth: that he didn't want to talk about it.) But next Wednesday, when the Mitchell Report on drug use in baseball and Roger Clemens, the biggest star named in that report, take center stage before the committee, there will be--unless somebody changes his story--to say the least, contradictions. This is no longer a case of he said/he said. The wildly differing stories being offered by Clemens and his accuser, Brian McNamee, a former trainer who worked closely with Clemens, can't both be true.

It's like a Congressional version of the old TV game show "To Tell the Truth"--with prison the possible outcome for the one deemed the loser. McNamee has upped the ante by claiming he kept needles and other materials that he used to inject Clemens with illegal drugs in 2000 and 2001 when The Rocket pitched for the New York Yankees and McNamee worked for the ballclub. Clemens' defense against these materials, at least as suggested by his lawyers, is that they are phony evidence manufactured by McNamee, an indication of how desperate he is to pursue this vindictive scheme against Clemens. It is certainly evidence that McNamee is a snake, but that has never really been at issue. But if he manufactured this evidence, he is more than desperate, he is a total madman.

As much as it simplifies matters for Clemens and his lawyers to portray this as simply Clemens vs. McNamee--with Clemens deserving the benefit of the doubt because he won more than 300 games--it is not remotely that. It is Clemens vs McNamee, former Sen. George Mitchell and his investigative team and the feds. To buy Clemens' version, you also have to believe that Mitchell's team, desperate for a big name to sate the appetite for a cleansing by the sport of baseball, pressured McNamee into lying about Clemens after he had already provided them with what appears to be truthful evidence against other name players, including Andy Pettitte. And that McNamee, who could walk away from this mess without prison time as long as he didn't perjure himself, went ahead and lied anyway and gave up Clemens to accommodate their blood lust.

A McNamee lawyer said the physical evidence was turned over to the feds last month. That was right after Clemens went public with a secretly taped phone call between the two men, even though there was no real evidence on that tape of who was telling the truth and, moreover, no indications that McNamee was vindictive. Indeed it appeared almost the opposite, that he seemed to revere Clemens and felt horrible about what he was being forced to do to the superstar. For Clemens' version to be true, McNamee would have to be a remarkably clever adversary, one who was actually playing Clemens when it appeared that Clemens was playing him.

Ultimately, this war of words may not matter. If there is physical evidence against Clemens, it will tip all the weight--and Roger's' dutiful rounds of Congress suggest it is already leaning that way (regardless of any arguments produced, scientific or legal, that it is unreliable). But when it comes to clever, it is the feds that may be the real deal. Even before Bonds was indicted, his lawyer insisted that the feds were laying a "perjury trap" for his client, one he may well have fallen into. Given that the fed had this so-called hard evidence a month ago and apparently didn't reveal it, could they have been laying a perjury trap for Clemens? And only now that Clemens has been deposed under oath by congressional committee lawyers, have the feds allowed McNamee to spring that trap?