After the beating he took before a Senate subcommittee last week, I was wondering if Dr. Mehmet Oz eased his pain with Dr. Mercola’s Organic Body Butter. That product goes for $52.97 for four ounces at Mercola’s supplement mill. Spread it thinly, Dr. Oz! In case you missed it — and, with those stunning World Cup games going on, it’s totally likely you did — Oz ran afoul of Missouri Democrat Sen. Claire McCaskill during a Senate subcommittee hearing. The senator  took on the TV pitchman, mostly for his promotion of certain substances as the source of “miracle weight loss.” Usually Congress sucks up to celebrity witnesses, but this time Oz was tossed on a pile that, until now, included only former professional baseball players with pasts that involved steroid use. My only disappointment was that he did not bring his buddy and frequent guest star, Dr. Mercola, with him to the hearing. But what Oz got on his own was a treat. “I don’t get why you need to say this stuff because you know it’s not true,” McCaskill told the TV doctor. The Senate panel’s interest in the schemes and the pitchmen who milk the $60-billion diet industry follows Federal Trade Commission (FTC) action against Florida-based Pure Green Coffee, which promised users would drop 20 pounds in four weeks. Oz said he promoted the green coffee extract because “my job is to be a cheerleader for the audience when they don’t think they have hope.” In other words, the life of anyone watching daytime reality TV shows like “Dr. Oz” is probably pretty hopeless to begin with, so a little cheerleading should trump any concerns he might have about telling them lies. “When I can’t use language that is flowery, that is exulting, I feel like I’ve been disenfranchised,” Oz reportedly told the Senate Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Insurance. Really? You mean Harpo Productions and Sony Pictures Television is really in the business of exulting flowery language, not programs about the best medical advice? I thought it was the “Dr. Oz Show.” In 2012, Oz was calling the green coffee extract a “magic weight loss cure for every body type.” “The scientific community is almost monolithically against you in terms of the efficacy of the three products you called ‘miracles,’” McCaskill said. While she said the hearing was not called to “beat up” on Oz, she noted that his TV doctor show can either be “part of the police or be part of the problem ….” In response, Oz said he might tone down his language but would continue to share information on weight loss products with his audience. He seems to favor weight loss gimmicks that “jumpstart” a diet to give people “hope.” If the Senate stops there, I am going to be disappointed. Why not explore the financial entanglements that might be involved in the $60-billion diet industry? A couple years ago, Oz had a “Mercola” section on his website to explain why he would sometimes use the Illinois doctor with “unconventional” views on the TV show. Today, the Dr. Oz website is selling supplements in a similar manner to Mercola. This strikes me as odd and not something you’d do if maintaining your credibility was a top priority. Oz may not think he has to worry about that. He is, after all, a real doctor and a respected surgeon. (Oz is a Cleveland-born Turkish-American who was a practicing cardiothoracic surgeon when Oprah Winfrey and Larry King began to tap him for his knack as a television personality.) But, doc, we all have to worry about our credibility, or, as the good senator from the “Show Me State” put it: “Why, when you have this amazing megaphone and this amazing ability to communicate, why would you cheapen your show by saying things like that?”