A loss for Roger Clemens

I believe the liar.

I believe the drug dealer.

I believe the lowlife pseudo-trainer, Dr. Brian McNamee, of the fraudulent McNamees.

To quote the good doctor (he assumed the title by earning a bogus PhD from the diploma-mill known as Columbus University in Metairie, La.), it is what it is.

Depending, of course, on what the meaning of the word "is" is.

Let's tell it like it is: McNamee, appearing both sullen and shaken, came off as more credible at Wednesday's congressional hearing than Saint Roger Clemens.

Even if you misremember everything else you saw during the 4 hour and 41 minute spectacle — and I watched every sordid second, from the fawning over Clemens by some congressmen to the fierce undressing of McNamee by others, don't forget this:

Andy Pettitte is the tiebreaker.

When Pettitte told investigators that Clemens revealed to him 10 years ago using human growth hormone, that removed much of the doubt I had about the veracity of McNamee's testimony.

To believe Clemens, you have to believe that McNamee told the truth about administering HGH to Pettitte and Chuck Knoblauch — both of them admitted it in sworn testimony — but lied about Clemens. Even though such a lie, if proved, would send him to jail.

To believe Clemens, you have to disbelieve Sen. George Mitchell and his staff of investigators, who have put their reputation, and that of the Mitchell Report, on the line by steadfastly standing by McNamee's testimony.

And now you have to believe that Pettitte lied about his conversation with Clemens (and subsequently lied to his wife, who corroborated Pettitte's memory in her own affidavit). Either that, or you have to believe Clemens' assertion that Pettitte "misremembered" his HGH admission.

When he asked Clemens again about his admitted HGH use in 2005, Pettitte said in his testimony, Clemens claimed he had been talking about HGH use by his wife, not by himself.

The problem with that assertion is, Debbie Clemens' admitted use of HGH came two years after that initial conversation.

Make no mistake: This is an either-or situation. You must align yourself in one camp or the other, McNamee or Clemens, so divergent are their claims. This is one case where there is no room for partial truth in both camps — not on the salient point that McNamee either shot up Clemens with HGH, more than 20 times, or he didn't.

And if you believe Pettitte, then you must, by extension, believe McNamee, a sentiment which doesn't come easily. This is a guy who copped to lies both big and small, who withheld evidence from the Mitchell Report investigators, who had no qualms about juicing up any player who asked him to do so.

But I think back to a conversation I had with an attorney named Tom Buchanan when I was doing research on the day in December that the Mitchell Report was released.

Buchanan — the brother of former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan — is the head of litigation at the Washington, D.C., law firm of Winston and Strawn.

"I was a former federal prosecutor," Buchanan told me, "and the only people who have information in drug cases are other drug users. You're not going to get some priest or rabbi who watched them do it."

Buchanan also served as co-counsel for Major League Baseball during Commissioner Bart Giamatti's investigation of Pete Rose in 1989. It was the testimony of lowlifes and hangers-on that fueled the Dowd Report, later vindicated by Rose's belated admission that he bet on baseball.

"With Rose, those were guys you wouldn't want your daughter to come home with, but they had credibility in the sense they spent years with Rose," Buchanan said. "He couldn't deny that."

Clemens continues to deny McNamee's version, forcefully, but he lost considerable ground on Wednesday with Pettitte's damning testimony. Consider the opinion of Katherine Darmer, a specialist in criminal procedure and professor of law at Chapman University:

"It is true that McNamee has lied in the past," Darmer said. "But the type of lies he told — ones where he tended to minimize his own conduct and cover up for his former friends and clients — are quite typical of how people often initially behave when caught in wrongdoing.

"Had he made demonstrably false allegations implicating innocent ballplayers, then his testimony should be viewed skeptically. However, all the hearing established today was that it took him awhile to be willing to come clean.

"Almost no large-scale wrongdoing comes to light through choirboys, and McNamee is no angel. But his allegations have been substantiated by others whose integrity is solid, including Pettitte."

McNamee has credibility issues, no question. It might be difficult for the government to win a perjury case against Clemens based largely on the trainer's testimony.

But Clemens is fighting a much bigger battle in the court of public opinion. And to my eyes and ears, McNamee won the he-said, he-said on Wednesday.

Give the save to Andy Pettitte.

Larry Stone: 206-464-3146 or lstone@seattletimes.com