Two words on Rafael Palmeiro

0. For a variety of reasons - his reputation as one of the best men in the game, the unusual sympathy of the arbiter, his straightforward denial, my perhaps characteristically American naive sense of fair play - I'm still willing to entertain the possibility that Palmeiro didn't intentionally take steroids, much as I was wiling to entertain the possibility that Clinton hadn't had sex with that woman.

1. Those on the left (e.g., people I usually agree with like Digby or Mark Kleiman) who are mocking Bush for his statement of support for Palmeiro seem to be confusing (in the latter's words) "Palmeiro's denial that he had ever used steroids" with his later statement that he had never intentionally used steroids. That or they don't feel the pull of the arguments in 0.