I know the Lance Armstrong story was really more last week’s top news moment, and that’s okay because this is really more about the reaction to that story than anything Lance did or didn’t do. See, watching him crucified, vilified, and thoroughly raked over the coals made me wonder just what the outrage was about.
Yes, he lied about doping. No, that shouldn’t have shocked anyone older than the age of 12. Lance is an incredible, incredible athlete, and an inspirational cancer story but anyone who thought he could break the records he did for so many years without a little “help” is naive at best. If you really think his wins could be so effortless then I’ve got some beach front property in Kansas to sell you…
So why the outrage? What did Lance do that was just so awful? Hell, what did he do that ALL athletes are not currently doing? I’ve heard people shit on him for being “such a liar” but maybe the people they’re really lying to are themselves if they think there’s a professional athlete out there not using a little “help.”
Then I’ve heard Piers Morgan (who had a real pot calling the kettle black moment when he called Lance a bad person) say “Think about all the moms who’ve spent their money to buy Lance Armstrong gear for their kids,” uhhhh…would those same moms really care that much if they found out that every pro-football player whose jersey they’ve bought is also on steroids? Then Bill (Human-Scum) Bush from Access Hollywood tore into Lance, and I really felt bad for the guy.
I think what’s really going on here isn’t so much what Lance did, or really what anyone who’s involved in a “scandal” did. I think this is really about America’s true favorite sport: feeling superior to other people.
It’s that stubborn old puritanical streak that lies right beneath our culture. The one that says we have to immediately judge anyone who’s revealed as (gasp!) less than perfect. And “anyone” means anyone, whether it’s a government official who has extramarital sex (which happens every week, yet we still pretend to be just a-p-p-a-l-l-e-d when it happens…every…damn…week) or a pro-athlete who’s revealed to have used steroids, which has only happened to every major baseball player, and they don’t even test basketball/football players for it because they already know how the results would go.
What I’m really saying is that every time the public demands an apology from a celebrity for tweeting something stupid or a resignation from a politician for saying something stupid, I think it’s more about our need to feel better about ourselves than really feeling that outraged. Lance’s actions hurt no one. [I can say that because all of the other competitors in the sport are doping too…and it’s bull to pretend otherwise.] And I’m having a hard time believing he really hurt America’s feelings either. Because the gleeful reaction to his downfall seems a lot more like he made their week.
Lance sucks!