Who Can Argue with Stupidity?

Alex Rodriguez's admission of performance-enhancing drug use is pure theatric. He's already getting praised for "opening a vein" in his presser on Tuesday, which is precisely what the event was meant to look like: the confessions of a chastened every-man.

Rodriguez hammered the adjectives "young," "stupid," and "naive" tirelessly on Tuesday because those flaws are so much more forgivable than being, say, "dishonest," "dishonorable," and "arrogant." In fact, stupidity and youth are hardly vices, are they? Who among us doesn't look back at their early-to-mid-20's with some mixture of wistful regret and tortured remorse? I was in grad. school at 24; how naive was that?

This is a wordsmithed tap dance staged as a penitent ballet. There's no way a five-year veteran of the Major Leagues is naive, 24 isn't young in the terms of a baseball career, and there's no way an athlete who only months before maneuvered his way into the biggest contract (at the time) in professional sports history can claim stupidity. Dude knew exactly what he was doing. He just can't say so.