The Asterisks List

Is Roger Clemens guilty of using steroids, HGH (Human Growth Hormones) and other performance enhancing drugs?
Better question: Who cares?
Whoa! I guess a lot of people, baseball and sports fans, because it dominates the sports page and news shows. Evidently the US Congress cares enough to stop worrying about a war, the deficit, or the downward spiraling economy, so they can hear The Rocket’s testimony.
Some fans believe Clemens and Barry Bonds, et al, should go into record books with an asterisks next to their accomplishments?
Should they? Who knows?
The bigger question: (no, not who cares? (although, seriously, really, who does?)) Why don’t other professions mark ‘enhanced’ performances with asterisks?
Should we keep Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises off the top 100 books of all time just because Ernest drank? Should we remove Slaughterhouse Five from the list because Vonnegut smoked tobacco, which calmed his nerves, a performance enhancer if ever there was one?
Should the Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis, Janis Joplin, Ozzy, Guns and Roses … aww, hell … should every rock band ever, be left out of the record books?
Does it matter? Perhaps it does. To someone. To fans, reporters and possibly, congress, so to start the process of purging the record books of cheaters I present:

A few great professionals whose careers were affected by performance enhancing drugs:

Aaron Sorkin: Playwright/screenwriter. A Few Good Men, The American President, and West Wing. Plus, Sports Night, and Studio 60, the two greatest shows ever canceled. Poetry in prose. A dance of words … Performance enhancing drug of choice: cocaine.

Kate Moss: Supermodel and super thin.. Performance enhancing drug of choice: Heroine (chic) and syrup-of-ipecac. (aka HSH – Human Shrinking Hormone) People don’t get that thin naturally. Have you seen the perceived size of her head in relation to her body?

Sherlock Holmes: The greatest criminal investigator ever (before Monk.) He could see things nobody else could. Performance enhancing drug of choice: Opium.

Hunter S. Thomson: gonzo journalist extroidinaire. Performance enhancing drug of choice: everything and everything. He openly admits it in writing, like the Jose Conseco of journalism.

Marion Barry: Mayor of Washington DC. (not related to Marion Jones – gold medal cheater) Performance enhancing drug of choice: crack. Set up or not, that man did things in his office.

Con Phillis: World’s Greatest Dad (at least according to a coffee cup presented to him by his third child). Performance enhancing drug of choice: Caffeine in the form of coffee. How effective is this? He’s still a great dad, even in his 80s. In his 80s!

Sylvia Plath: poet, writer, visionary. Performance enhancing drug of choice: Huffing gas. No way she gets to the end of her career without it.

I’m sure there’s more. Congress should subpoena editors, photographers, managers, etc. and get to the bottom of every profession. Let’s name names before it’s too late.
And by too late, I mean before everyone figures out it’s stupid.
Really, who cares?