How Dubya Got It Right for Once

It may be stating the blindingly obvious to say President George Bush is not everybody's cup of tea. Especially on the other side of the Atlantic where Democrat bar-room bores still home in on the owner of an English accent to apologise on behalf of the American electorate for Dubya being voted in for a second term.

"He's a war-mongering mental cripple who's made Britain his bitch," said the smartly dressed middle-aged woman who seemed to think I needed a break from weighing up the pros and cons of Danny Williams's chances of beating seven bells out of Vitali Klitschko to hear her views on the world in general and Bush in particular. Warming to her theme, as she downed what I assumed was not her first large vodka at a bar in the Mandalay Bay Hotel, she added: "Why don't you guys stand up to him? Why don't you stand up for Europe? Britain's too good to be America's bitch," as if I had any say in the matter.

"Actually," I replied, "Bush has done something I really approve of this week." John Kerry's boozed-up admirer's jaw dropped. Further down the bar, two guys in checked shirts, wearing improbably large black stetsons, were suddenly part of the conversation. Las Vegas was not only the host city for the world heavyweight championship last week but also the National Finals Rodeo when just about every cowboy and wannabe cowboy in the west converged on the city to see who would be named champion bare-back rider, steer wrestler, calf roper and bull rider. It is not an occasion for animal rights activists, and certainly not for liberal and loud opponents of their man, George Bush.

"I think he has done your country a favour by saying baseball has to clean up its act," I continued, with the stetson boys nodding approvingly. "He said baseball has got to get itself a proper drugs testing programme. That's got to be good for American sport and, indirectly, world sport." The Kerry lover spluttered into her Absolut, muttering something sounding suspiciously like "bullshit", and turned away in search of another victim. This particular Brit, apparently, was beyond hope.

In Britain, it may be Marion Jones who dominates our understanding of the Balco investigation and the charges that have been levelled against the laboratory owner Victor Conte and three of his associates. But sprinting doesn't cut it with the cowboy fraternity, who took a break from their annual pilgrimage to watch Dolly Parton yee-ha her way through a sell-out concert at Caesars Palace before turning the casino floor back at the hotel into a passable lookalike of the old wild west at 4am as fists flew when some out-of-towners suggested cowboy appearance and behaviour were a little, er, unusual.

America as a whole is far less concerned, it seems, with Conte's claims that he helped Jones inject her way to Olympic glory, charges she has consistently denied, than that baseball should have been besmirched by leaked federal grand jury testimony implicating one of the biggest names in the sport, Jason Giambi of the New York Yankees, and the man who is pretty much an American sporting god, Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants. For Bonds to be sucked into this, even though cynics are saying "No shock there", is like Dwain Chambers times 10. If you can imagine a Tim Henman-Paula Radcliffe hybrid saying he/she had taken the gear, it gives an idea of the impact on the American sporting public. To say, as some have intimated, that Johnny Six Pack has a short memory and will forgive their sins seems manifestly wide of the mark.

It is another good ol' boy, Bush's original rival for the presidential candidacy, Senator John McCain of Arizona, who has helped propel this particular drugs controversy into the public domain. He says he will introduce legislation if Major League Baseball and the players' union cannot thrash out a voluntary agreement to bring baseball closer to the guidelines laid down by the World Anti-Doping Agency to eradicate what is thought to be widespread steroid abuse.

Bond says that he was unaware that the substances given him by Conte were performance-enhancing drugs. The tablets were taken and "cream" administered in all innocence. How was he to know? But his protestations elicit little sympathy. Columnists have been queuing up to heap shame on baseball's most famous player, a man behind only Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth in the number of home runs he has struck.

The sport was then rocked by the decision of one of its principal sponsors, MasterCard, to pull out of a deal that would have promoted Bonds next season, with the Giants star expected to score the homers needed to pass Ruth's tally of 715 before closing in on Aaron's best ever of 755. It is a success, as Christine Brennan wrote in USA Today, allegedly founded on "some parts blood, sweat and tears and some part chemical experiment".

But it is one thing to be slagged off by star writers, or even the president of the United States. MasterCard is hitting Bonds and baseball where it hurts, in the pocket, and other companies, notably sportswear manufacturers, might consider following suit.

America's complacency to drug abuse in sport is being dramatically swept away. As one of the cowboys told me: "Don't know why anyone takes that stuff, we put it in bulls."