And now it looks as if the American public will be spared Jason Giambi’s full and frank testimony about performance enhancing drugs, masturbation, weight loss, communism and other hot topics, writes Newsday’s Ken Davidoff.

Congress might not want Jason Giambi to visit after all.

Tom Davis (R-Va.), the chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, told the San Jose Mercury News in a story published Friday that the committee could “dis-invite” one of the seven subpoenaed players expected to attend Thursday’s hearing on steroids in baseball.

Though Davis refused to confirm that Giambi is the player, the newspaper paraphrased Davis as saying that such a withdrawal would be done to avoid complicating the BALCO investigation. None of the other six current and former players are reportedly involved with BALCO.

When asked about the chance of getting off the hook, Giambi — in Lakeland, Fla., with the Yankees — responded: “I haven’t allowed myself to think about that.”

Stanley Brand, Major League Baseball’s outside counsel, said he hadn’t heard firsthand of such a possibility. “Maybe we’re getting through to them,” Brand said.

In a letter to Congress on Wednesday, one of Brand’s top objections was that the hearing could interfere with the Department of Justice’s BALCO investigation.

David Marin, deputy staff director of the House committee, couldn’t be reached for comment concerning Giambi.

Only the Yankees, Giambi’s employers, would be disappointed by such a development. Had Giambi somehow slipped up in his testimony, the Yankees could have used it as grounds to void the remainder of the slugger’s contract.

Indeed, it could prove very lucrative to George Steinbrenner were Giambi to further incriminate himself. The same Steinbrenner, of course, who has sent a lot of cash to the current majority party throughout the years (as the late Billy Martin might remind us, George was convicted for it.) I’m not suggesting for a second that this entire exercise was engineered simply as some kind of payback to a powerful ally, but what is spring training about if it isn’t unrealistic fantasies?