Oh wait, that was a different serial philanderer and liar.  My bad…they all run together after a while.

Roger Clemens is steadfastly denying that not only did he not take steroids and performance-enhancing drugs:

“I know that many people want to know what I have to say about the recent articles in the media,” Clemens, who has raised his four children with his wife, Debbie, in the Katy and Memorial areas, said in a statement to the Houston Chronicle. “Even though these articles contain many false accusations and mistakes, I need to say that I have made mistakes in my personal life for which I am sorry. I have apologized to my family and apologize to my fans. Like everyone, I have flaws. I have sometimes made choices which have not been right.”

While not admitting to any specific mistakes, Clemens did remain adamant that he never used steroids or HGH. He has been fighting to clear his name since Dec. 13, when he was implicated in the use of performance-enhancing drugs in the report former Sen. George Mitchell prepared for Major League Baseball.

“I believe my personal life has nothing to do with the accusations of steroid and HGH use,” he said in the statement. “I have already made clear that I did not use them.”

…but that he also did not have an improper relationship with country singer Mindy McCready:

“Now, I have been accused of having an improper relationship with a 15-year-old girl. Nothing could be further from the truth. This relationship has been twisted and distorted far beyond reality. It is just one of many, many accusations that are utterly false.”

McCready, however, told the Daily News that she “cannot refute anything in the story” about her relationship with Clemens.

…along with other (admittedly legal) women:

The Daily News also reported that Clemens had extramarital relationships with two other women, including the former wife of pro golfer John Daly.

Clemens is adamant that he won’t confess just so the scrutiny will go away.

“I realize that many people want me to simply confess and apologize for the conduct that I have been accused of, but I cannot confess to, nor apologize for, things I did not do,” he said. “I have apologized to my family for my mistakes. And having offered this apology to the public, I would ask that you let me and my family deal with these matters in private.”

Like I said before, had he just kept both his big mouth shut and his Rocket in his pants, this story about Mindy McCready might not have ever hit the press.  It seems that if she would have wanted to publicize it, she would have done so by now, and outside of one statement to the press when the story broke she has remained silent on the subject.  But because he filed a defamation of character suit against his former trainer, it all came out, and Roger has only himself to blame for it.  Yes, it might have come out anyway, but he could have then apologized and at least not looked like a lying hypocrite (yeah, as if he would have the humility to apologize).

Yes, we all make mistakes, and yes, we all have things in our pasts that we are embarrassed about and ashamed of.  But if you’re in the public eye, you need to make double sure that you’re not presenting yourself to the world as one thing, when you’re really another, because you will be found out.  Millions of dollars, a possible stint in the pokey, and his family are at stake, all because Roger Clemens is too arrogant to realize just what is going on.

And no, this isn’t going to be a post where I pull out stale jokes about how stupid rednecks are.  It’s a positive thing that country singer Gretchen Wilson decided to finish her high school education:

Despite all her successes, the 34-year-old singer and songwriter was one of 20 percent of Tennesseans without a high school diploma. But no longer.

Wilson, who dropped out in ninth grade, passed her General Educational Development exam in April and will don a cap and gown during a May 15 graduation ceremony.

Wilson told The Tennessean that her 7-year-old daughter was the big reason to finally finish, saying, “I certainly don’t want her to think you can be this successful without an education.”

Good on her.  I’m serious.  Too many of our young people are dropping out of high school without finishing their educations, which seriously limits their chances of going on to college and at furthering themselves in the workplace.  Too many high school dropouts are ending up on welfare or hooked on drugs.  Certain entertainers have perpetuated (as part of their tough image) the thinking that you don’t need education to be successful; but the truth is that nearly a third of high school students drop out before graduating, are three times more likely to be unemployed, and are eight times more likely to be incarcerated.

On a related note, my kids and I happened to see Gretchen at a free concert last year.  They were surprised at how little she was…we were watching the jumbo screens and you could barely see her on the long stage shots.  This is a seriously tiny woman!

Yes, just when you thought the saga of Roger Clemens couldn’t get any stranger, it gets stranger.  I admit I haven’t been following this whole Roger/steroids story as much as some (I’m not a big baseball fan), but when Shaun Daily mentioned this on his BTR show yesterday, I sat up and took notice.  It seems that he and troubled country singer Mindy McCready met when she was fifteen and this developed into a long sexual relationship:

Roger Clemens carried on a decade-long affair with country star Mindy McCready, a romance that began when McCready was a 15-year-old aspiring singer performing in a karaoke bar and Clemens was a 28-year-old Red Sox ace and married father of two, several sources have told the Daily News. […]

Contacted by the Daily News Sunday through his lawyer Rusty Hardin, Clemens confirmed a long-term relationship but denied that it was of a sexual nature.

“He flatly denies having had any kind of an inappropriate relationship with her,” Hardin said. “He’s considered her a close family friend. … He has never had a sexual relationship with her.”

Apparently, Mindy began travelling with Roger after they met in a bar where she was singing at age fifteen:

Hardin said the Rocket’s wife, Debbie, knew McCready and that the singer had traveled on his plane. […]

[Brian] McNamee, who worked with and traveled with Clemens extensively over the last decade, has confirmed that he saw Clemens and McCready together on many occasions, including in Clemens’ room at his apartment in the former SkyDome, now Rogers Centre, in Toronto, and that Clemens talked of McCready often. Should McNamee decide to countersue for defamation, McCready could surface as a witness for that case as well.

According to sources, Clemens was with his Red Sox teammates in a Fort Myers, Fla., bar when then-teenager McCready caught his eye. After Clemens threw a shirt with his and several teammates’ signatures onstage, an introduction was made.

“It was love at first sight, no doubt about it,” said a source with intimate knowledge of the relationship.

According to the source, McCready did not learn that Clemens was married to Debbie Clemens until McCready attended a baseball game with her two younger brothers and read Clemens’ bio in the program. The source says that McCready was too young to be angered by the news that Clemens was taken.

Roger has sued his former personal trainer for defamation of character, a bit ironic and a huge risk since when you do so, you claim you had unsullied character to begin with:

From a public relations standpoint, Clemens’ decision to file the suit against McNamee the night the Rocket appeared with Mike Wallace on “60 Minutes” could end up being the biggest risk he has taken yet. Clemens, under investigation for perjury, has already endured the ignominy of publicly admitting his wife’s own human growth hormone use, having photos of bloody gauze and needles linked to him and embarrassing scrutiny of an alleged injection-site abscess on his buttocks. […]

“The issue in Roger’s suit against McNamee is Roger’s reputation and how it has been damaged,” said Richard Emery, one of McNamee’s lawyers who is handling the defamation suit. “If it’s proved that he’s a philanderer, his reputation is already damaged. When you sue for defamation, you put your whole reputation in the community at issue. Anything is fair game, including his claim of sanctimonious purity. We would cross-examine him and other witnesses who might impact on his alleged behavior. We would probably subpoena her and witnesses who knew [of the relationship]. He’s a ‘family man’ - he implies that. It’s about what his damages are. All is fair game.” […]

The seven-time Cy Young Award winner’s orchestrated public relations blitz began shortly after the Dec. 13 release of the Mitchell Report on drug use in baseball. It focused as much on Clemens’ family-man reputation as it did on McNamee’s checkered past and apparent lies about his involvement in an incident in Florida in 2001 for which he was investigated for sexual assault. No charges were ever filed in that case, but Clemens’ lawyer Hardin papered the media with accounts of the incident.

The relationship with McCready paints a very different picture of Clemens than the one drawn by Jose Canseco in his book “Juiced,” where he went out of his way to say that Clemens was one of very few professional ballplayers who was faithful to his wife.

And it smacks of a different Clemens than the one who spoke passionately of his family in his opening remarks to Congress Feb. 13. Debbie Clemens was seated behind her husband at the hearing.

“Anyone who has spent time around me knows that my family is and has always been my top priority,” a portion of the statement read. “My wife, Debbie, and my sons - Koby, Kory, Kacy and Kody - mean more to me than anything in the world. Having said that, baseball has definitely provided me with significant opportunities off the field.”

But wait, there’s more…

I love Toby Keith.  Not only is he the hawtness, with a great sense of humor to boot, and his voice is to die for, but he’s a huge supporter of our troops and goes out of his way to entertain them.  But at a recent show in Afghanistan, it seems the locals didn’t appreciate his vocal stylings:

Keith and his band were in the middle of the song “Weed With Willie” when mortar fire on the base in Kandahar erupted, sending the band and the troops looking for cover.

“We all ran about 100 yards to a concrete bunker,” Curt Motley, the singer’s agent who was with him on the USO tour, told People.

Keith is currently on an 18-show USO tour throughout the Persian Gulf.

The singer and his bandmates stayed inside a bunker with the soldiers for about an hour, reportedly signing autographs and posing for photos to pass the time.

Once they were given the sign it was all clear, the country star returned to the stage, against the advice of military personnel.

“He went right to the verse he was in and finished his show!” Motley told People.

What a class act, to go out there and finish the show for our brave men and women in the Armed Forces.  They deserve the best we have (so let’s please not send Jessica Simpson any more).

This is the second post I’ve done this week about a country singer who could show some of these primadonna so-called “stars” a thing or two about professionalism and how to get things done.  Do you think Toby had to have a red carpet surrounded by scented candles just to walk to a stage on a military base?  Or perhaps he refused to sing for the troops unless he had a certain brand of water, chilled to just the right temperature, and some PLAIN (not peanut, or heads will roll) M&M’s?  Or maybe he would have threatened to storm out in a huff if someone couldn’t find wheatgrass juice and he forgot his black nail polish (a possibility that Trace Adkins, another country star, had to deal with concerning the Backstreet Boys on the season finale of The Apprentice, something which still gives me lulz)?

So you can forget the wheatgrass juice and the candles and the fawning sycophants waiting to wipe a star’s behind each time they fart gold.  Give me a real star like Toby Keith any day (preferably gift wrapped, but include the hat and boots, please).  One Breath Of Fresh Air Award for my man Toby, and put it on my tab.