Roger Clemens interviewed with Mike Wallace tonight on 60 Minutes. What we learned tonight from the interview is this: Roger Clemens was a player who would take anything to get himself out on the mound. Vioxx, Toredol, B-12, Lidocaine... as long as it wasn't on any MLB banned-substances list, he was pumping it into his body to keep it performing beyond its natural limits. He spoke of nearly being benched by Joe Torre in the World Series, talking his way onto the mound with painkillers. When your body is being pushed beyond the limits of short- and long-term health, using pharmaceuticals to distract from the pain of breaking down the body, that is enhancing performance. And, as his character showed tonight, it would not shock me one bit if further information came out confirming he had something stronger than B-vitamins in his system... he allowed himself to be a pincushion anyway.

But that was not the highlight of the evening's programming. In his weekly A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney rant, Rooney started in on our political system. Speaking about what he referred to as the nation's two smartest presidents, Rooney let spill, "Both Roosevelt and Jefferson had names that sounded presidential, too. I like that."

What offends in these ramblings of an old legend is his insinuation that a man or a woman cannot be a worthy president unless their name sounds old and rich and white and elite and purebred...

The time has come in this nation to stop evaluating our candidates for public office based on which has the most impressive-sounding name. We need our leaders to have the best thoughts to move our country forward. Rooney asked whether names like Barack Obama or Mike Huckabee could compare to an Abraham Lincoln or a Thomas Jefferson or a George Washington...

It is this same narrow thought which allows players with names like Roger Clemens and Mark McGwire to get free passes for so long while guys with names like Jose Canseco and Rafael Palmiero come under (albeit warranted) scrutiny for the same crimes... 

What we need to stop asking ourselves is whether our candidate's names are impressive enough to live up to the names of the past, and start asking whether their philosophies and their policies and their records are impressive enough to live up to the legacies of those who served before. A man like Abraham Lincoln is not remembered merely because he had a name impressive enough to be elected; he is remembered because of the courage of his convictions, the wisdom in his actions, and his struggle and ultimate sacrifice for liberty and justice for all...

We can only hope to be lucky enough to find a leader who could live up to THOSE qualities. We don't need a president with an impressive moniker -- we need a president, at this crossroads in our nation's history, with impressive leadership to steer us through the troubled waters our past administration has sown. George W. Bush may look good as a name in the roll call of U.S. presidents, but the annals of history will not look as kindly at his actions while in office. Let us hope that our next president, whether he or she be named Obama or Huckabee or Romney or Giuliani or Clinton -- or even Paul or Kucinich -- knows that it is not the name you pen at the end of a letter which gets the message across, but all the words which preceed the signature...