As a Brewer fan, I’m certainly not happy that outfielder Ryan Braun has been suspended for the rest of the season (and postseason, as if) by Major League Baseball for (eventually) confessed use of performance-enhancing drugs.

I am not, however, obsessing about it, and neither should Brewer fans. The chances of the Brewers’ being a playoff contender were minimal anyway in what’s turning out to be a bad season.

Since the news came out Monday afternoon, I’ve seen the words “cheater,” “liar,” “betrayal,” and synonyms thereof in various places. Some have suggested Braun be traded, as if the Brewers could possibly replace the offense he provides.

Awful Announcing observes:

The reaction to Braun’s suspension has wavered back and forth between disinterest, apathy, and steroid fatigue on one end of the spectrum to ANGRY MOB OF RIGHTEOUS OUTRAGE on the other.  To tell the truth, I’m getting the sense that the media anger about PED use has fed the sense of apathy and fatigue for many fans.  We’re simply tired of the vicious cycle of PED use, columns, lies, columns, suspensions, columns, columns, and more columns.

There’s been so much grandstanding, so much anger, so much righteous outrage, so much discussion, debate, and speculation about steroids that we have collectively tapped out.  I think most of us would sensibly agree steroids need stamped out, cheating is wrong, drugs are bad and all that, but we’d also like to enjoy sports again without all of this dragging us down to the bottom.

If anything, Braun is discovering that the cover up is always worse than the crime. It’s his lies, victim mentality, press conferences, and lack of accountability that are the undoing of his public persona moreso than his PED use.  You don’t see anyone frothing at the mouth ready to tear apart Melky Cabrera now, do you?

No group quite does righteous outrage when they feel wronged like sportswriters and because they’ve been lied to, it’s become personal with Ryan Braun.  In the wake of Braun’s suspension, writers from Yahoo to Slate to Fox and many others have taken out the claws and ripped Braun from limb to limb.  Even Dick Vitale, yes, Dick Vitale of all people, has penned a column saying Braun should be banned for life.  They have called this a great day for baseball and participated in a brash and unapologetic victory lap.

Braun cheated in that he violated baseball’s rules. (You’d think Richard Nixon would have taught everyone that the crime isn’t as bad as the cover-up.) So did Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire and numerous other players when they used steroids in the 1990s to pump up their careers. Nearly no one complained, because people wanted to become baseball fans again after the 1994 lockout gave us a season without a World Series. For that matter, every player who corked a bat and every pitcher (including a few from the Brewers, at least allegedly) who doctored a baseball through liquid substances or physical defacing of the baseball cheated too.

Braun lied in the same way that anyone who changes his or her plea in a criminal case from “not guilty” to “guilty” lies. It is nitpicking to claim that there’s a difference between actual guilt and legal guilt based on a legislative creation of a crime, isn’t it?

Remember that libertarians believe that laws that are unjust are laws that should not be followed, even with consequences. (Without civil disobedience, would Jim Crow laws have been eliminated?) An adult conversation about Braun’s suspension (as well as the rumored longer ban for Alex Rodriguez) should include the question of whether or not baseball should ban PEDs. Given what we now know about the steroid-fueled 1998 home run race, how would you have felt about proven steroid revelations while Sosa and McGwire were chasing the single-season home run record to fans’ delight?

Moreover, consider this from the athlete’s perspective. Take a pro athlete who comes from bad circumstances. Here is his chance to make money he has no other way of making. Play for a decade, and if you don’t waste money along the way, you — someone who never knew his father, didn’t go to academically good schools, went to college only for his athletic skills — will be set for life. Would trading 10 years of your life for increasing your chances at a pro sports career be worth it? It’s easy for you to say no if that’s not a description of your life.

At this point someone writing about baseball’s PED scandal is supposed to inveigle about the money in pro sports, and how our priorities are warped because teachers and soldiers aren’t paid as much as pro athletes, etc., etc., etc. Pro sports is a business. Braun is paid what he’s paid because his play generates money for the Brewers, in the same way that Aaron Rodgers is paid what he’s paid because his play generates money for the Packers. If the Brewers didn’t want to pay him, some other team would.

The preceding paragraphs may well seem cynical to you. My goal is that the rest of this blog won’t be.

We make a mistake by lionizing celebrities generally and athletes specifically. I watch no “reality” TV. For that matter, I’m not really a fan of the social media concept of “buzz.” What is popular today more often than not is passé tomorrow, or at least by the end of the week. “Buzz” is now, which by definition means temporary, not traditional, and not long-lasting.

I watch sports because I like sports. However, one Packer win is followed by another game, in the same way that one Packer loss is followed by another game, unless it’s a season-ending loss. (And I should theoretically have more Packer interest as a Packer shareholder.) Athletes learn things that non-athletes need to learn in other ways — to get better at something you have to perfectly practice, but you will fail at many things in your life (particularly trying to hit a baseball), but you have to keep going whether things are going well or not.

We make a bigger mistake when we worship politicians. The Cult of Obama is absolutely disgusting to those with morals. (If I am ever in the same room with someone who squeals like a teenage girl about how coooooool! Barack Obama is, I will not be responsible for what will happen next.) I was, and am, similarly disgusted with the Cult of Clinton. (It makes you wonder what progress women have achieved in our society given that the cults of Obama and Clinton appear to have a majority population of women.) Ronald Reagan would have disclaimed a Cult of Reagan, since (apparently unlike the current president) Reagan definitely believed in a higher power than himself.

I voted twice for Scott Walker as governor. I support him when he agrees with my positions on issues; I don’t support him when he doesn’t. Period. (Unlike many, many conservative bloggers in this state.)

Having been in the news media more than half of my life, I’ve met or seen a lot of people in the public eye, including one president (when he was a presidential candidate), one other presidential candidate, six Wisconsin governors, founders and CEOs some of the biggest companies in this state, several members of the management of the Green Bay Packers, and a few Packers.

From that group, I admire the business people the most, I suppose, for what they’ve accomplished in their lives in taking the personal and financial risk to go into business for themselves, leading to jobs being created, money being spent by employees, customers being served and communities getting the benefit of donations and various involvements. That doesn’t mean I would want to work for them, or that I’ll ever be a customer of theirs in some cases, or that they are necessarily paragons of business virtue in every instance.

I’ve been a fan of various athletes over the years. The only way athletes or celebrities or politicians should be role models is for qualities they have independent of their celebrity. Bart Starr comes to mind. So does Charlton Heston. So does … no politician that comes to mind.

Picking role models is a tricky business because humans are flawed. Every institution on this planet is flawed because humans run them. To be shocked — shocked! — to find out that Ryan Braun was less than truthful about his use of something that he believed would make him a better baseball player and thus able to make more money suggests you might be a bit naïve.

People do need role models. I originally was going to write that children need role models, but adults could use them too. My wife and I were blessed to have quality parents. Many people aren’t that blessed. In our society today with half of marriages ending in divorce, newly married people need to see older married people and how they interact. Men who grew up without fathers need to see older fathers and how to interact with their children in ways they didn’t get to learn as children.

Earlier this month, I spent an entire day going to the Wisconsin National Guard 229th Engineering Company’s welcome-home at Volk Field in Camp Douglas. All 147 who left came back, but even though this was an engineer company and not a combat company, those who serve in the military know what police officers know — that your next day at work could be your last day of life. As far as I know, no elected officials from where I live — and where a detachment of the 229th is based — could be bothered to attend their welcome-home ceremony. (Walker did attend, as did this area’s state representative.) Does that demonstrate personal values, or lack thereof? Absolutely.

Want role models? Look around you. But look in the right places. Your TV is probably not one of them.