Douthat on Whether or Not Mark McGwire Should Be Forgiven

My brief answer: yes, but forgiveness doesn’t mean the elimination of consequences.

Douthat’s point is that we should be careful in saying that we won’t forgive McGwire, because we may have to discount every hero from that era of baseball.

Ross Douthat:

As Joe Posnanski notes, nobody seems much inclined to do it. And you can understand why. McGwire’s extended mea culpa comes years after it became clear that he took steroids, years after he stammered his way through a Congressional hearing, years after a public expression of contrition would have counted as brave and morally impressive. He’s been beaten to the admission-and-apology punch by everyone from Alex Rodriguez to Jason Grimsley. And he still doesn’t want to acknowledge, for understandable reasons, that the steroids made all his home runs possible, even though saying that they kept him healthy so that he could hit home runs is basically the same thing anyway.

But here’s the thing: If McGwire shouldn’t be forgiven, then I’m not sure anybody can be forgiven from here on out.

Read more here.