Don't Knock Marion Jones for asking Bush for a pardon

She's a liar and a cheater who committed check fraud and is eternally disgraced. A federal judge, legions of sports writers, talk jocks, track buffs and pundits, the alphabet soup of track federations all agreed that track's one time reigning queen Marion Jones deserved to be locked up for her crimes. Even a contrite Jones agreed that she should do time. But that doesn't mean she doesn't have the right to ask President Bush for a pardon, or even to get one.

That, of course, won't happen. Even if Douglas G. Logan, C.E.O. of USA Track & Field hadn't written a bellicose open letter to Bush pillorying her as a cheat and liar and a disgrace to the sport, and virtually ordering Bush to toss her petition for the pardon in the trash, this is an Olympic year, and the track big wigs are doing everything they can to sell the public on the notion that they have run the big cheaters out of the sport. The memory of Jones's public tumble and the terrible image that she represents is still much too fresh. Jones has a better chance of winning the Big Spin Lotto without buying a ticket than getting the pardon.

However, Jones still can make a credible case for a pardon. A pardon wouldn't wipe away her conviction; it only means that she couldn't be sued for her criminal misdeeds. She's also a victim of the old, time tested double standard; in this case a gender and celebrity double standard. She's a woman and for a time she was the highest profile name in the track and field world. This was more than enough to insure that she would be slapped up on the neon lit poster as the poster girl for all that's evil and corrupt in track and field.

The problem with that is that there are others who are just as deserving of being slapped on that same poster with her, and few if any of them are. Despite all the saber rattling by track officials of busting the other track cheaters, she's still the only known track offender who has actually done hard jail time for her offense. The jail time is not the only smack down Jones has gotten.

She gave her medals back voluntarily. The International Association of Athletics Federation ( IAAF) wiped her records from the books, demanded that she repay $700,000 in prize money, and that the other women who ran on the gold medal winning relay teams with her give their medals back too, though there was not a scrap of evidence that they cheated.

Jones eventually came clean about her steroid use, and did a profuse mea culpa. At the time she didn't have a nickel to her name. She's not just disgraced, but she's damaged goods and when she's released she'll likely be just as broke for the foreseeable future.

Other noted sports jail birds such as Mike Tyson and O.J. Simpson fared much better. Tyson cashed in on his thug image and reaped millions. Before his Las Vegas bust, Simpson, managed to land some lucrative deals autographing sport memorabilia and lined his pockets by making celebrity sports appearances.  Jones got a four year ban for her misdeeds, but at her age that might as well be a permanent ban from her sport. And there's little chance of anyone dashing to her door with endorsement deals.

Meanwhile, the IAAF and the U.S Track and Field at one time waxed fat off of Jones, raking in millions in promotional fees, soaring attendance at meets where she ran, and endorsement deals. This is the same IAAF that didn't lift a finger to go after some other big time cheaters in track (the Greek Olympic silver medalist runner-up to Jones for example).

The issue then is not Jones's guilt or her punishment. Her guilt is well established, and the punishment that she got could have been much worse. It's really about the hypocrisy of a sport and those that run it who shake their moral finger at Jones and others who used performance enhancing drugs, yet they gloried in and profited from their track exploits, used them and their exploits to strut and boast about America's track dominance, all the while busily inking lucrative corporate sponsor ship deals.

Jones is no babe in the woods. She knowingly broke the rules, and then lied about it. But so have many others and they've done it often with a wink and nod from track and field higher ups and their big money sponsors. If Jones doesn't deserve a pardon, they don't deserve one either for their connivance with Jones and the other cheaters in the sport.