It's not the crime; it's the cover-up

[supergee]

I don't take sports doping all that seriously. Yeah, it's cheating, and they shouldn't do it, but there's a lot of worse stuff going on. Yesterday, the NY Post front page said that Lance Armstrong was one of the worst liars in all human history. This from a paper that enthusiastically cheered on the George W. Bush lies that got thousands of people killed in Iraq. I was closer to what Charlie Pierce said:

The man beat Stage Four cancer that began in his balls and spread to his brain, and I'm supposed to stop admiring him because, for the purpose of winning a bike race, he may have arranged to use too much of his own blood?

On the other hand, it appears that in order to cover up for the doping, Armstrong set out to ruin the lives of anyone who had the goods on him. Ta-Nehisi Coates discusses.