It's getting Hardin to root for Clemens

He makes our hair bleed.

By comparison, consider Barry Bonds' legal team, which has spent its time and billable hours preparing their client's defense on perjury and obstruction charges without much fuss or muss or speechifying. They know they only have to win in court because their client doesn't need P.R. as much as he needs good legal representation.

Hardin, though, has decided that Clemens' best defense is hearts and minds, which would lead you to think he would spend some of Clemens' money on someone who isn't the living embodiment of cougar's claws on a blackboard. You know, a spokesman whose speaking people can endure for more than nanoseconds at a time.

He will irritate you again today when the hearing is completed, because that is his most visible skill. He is considered a very good lawyer by people who collect lawyer trading cards, but we haven't seen that part of his game yet. What we've seen is the banty barrister unchained, and what he's selling, few people seem to be buying. Clemens' defenders are doing it without his help, and his detractors are taking extra glee in doing so when Hardin is speaking.

Thus, while we will have endured congressmen speaking (never a good thing), defendants sniping and Mitchell reputation-polishing, the worst of all will be Rusty Hardin's wall-to-wall post-hearing synopsis. Which means only one thing.

Can't wait for Thursday. Well, Friday, anyway.