The Investigation That's Going Nowhere

    Is George Mitchell being paid for whatever it is he's doing in regards to the baseball/performance enhancing drugs "investigation"? He's been at this for nearly a year now and what have been the results? What possible good does it do to have an investigator with no power whatsoever over that which he is investigating?
    George Mitchell has an impeccable resume in regards to public service and the machinations of the legal and judicial system. He's run for governor; been a United States attorney; a federal judge; served twelve years in the senate; was senate majority leader and was offered a seat on the Supreme Court by President Clinton. None of that has anything to do with his lack of results in this supposed "investigation" in which no one is willing to talk to him regarding anything involving performance enhancing drugs.
    Someone as experienced in the judiciary and legislature as George Mitchell undoubtedly knows that if he doesn't have any power to do anything to those that refuse to see him or answer his questions, he's not going to get anywhere with this "investigation". What is any of this doing other than wasting people's time and energy? Again and again we read and hear stories of Mitchell asking players to come and talk to him and the players refusing; what next? Does he ask more nicely? Mitchell wanted to see the medical records of the players; the Players Association said no; what now?
    This reminds me of the old Robin Williams comedy routine about cops in England who didn't carry guns: "Stop!! Or....I'll....yell stop again!!" If there's no power to coerce the players into participating; if there's no way to get a legitimate record of what went on with which players; if there's no recourse if people simply refuse to speak with Mitchell on advice of counsel, what is the purpose of this exercise other than to portray the facade of trying to do something about a situation with which the heads of baseball exercised a plausible deniability and were complicit in for their own benefit from the very beginning?