Buzz Bissinger: I Was Deluded to Believe Lance Armstrong When He Denied Doping - The Daily Beast

So Buzz Bissinger was deluded about Lance Armstrong.....


from The Daily Beast:
Buzz Bissinger: I Was Deluded to Believe Lance Armstrong When He Denied Doping - The Daily Beast:

I gave him the total benefit of the doubt. I used the logic that his blood doping was irrelevant because the sport of competitive cycling was rife with it. I referred to his heroic battle to overcome testicular cancer. I cited his foundation, Livestrong, and the legitimately good work it had on done on behalf of millions of cancer patients. I repeated his mantra that the witnesses cooperating with the USADA were a rogues’ gallery of disgraced cyclists with proven credibility problems. I wondered aloud how, if he had consistently cheated, he had passed more than 500 drug tests.

I called him a hero, using typically defiant and outspoken language. There were millions who felt the same way. But none of these millions had the power of the printed word like I did.

Because I was played by Armstrong. I was played when he told me with such heartfelt conviction that he was “at peace” with the decision he had made not to fight the USADA any longer. I believed the assertions coming time and time again from his camp that USADA head Travis Tygart was conducting a vendetta and witch hunt, offering immunity to known liars just so they would testify against Armstrong.

'via Blog this'

......but The Slav was not. Better late than never, Buzz.

Conte again refuses to roll over on Bonds!! What's wrong with this guy?

SATURDAY, MARCH 18, 2006

http://slavieboy.blogspot.com/2006/03/conte-again-refuses-to-roll-over-on.html

We still want to glorify the guys we like like Lance Armstrong and Roger Clemens and demonize those we don't like. Even when there is as much evidence or questions about one or the other. I still submit that if you truly believe Bonds is a user, you almost have to honestly admit that Lance Armstrong is a user. But few people do say Yes to both. A failed drug test, even though he and his supporters always submit the defense that he never failed a drug test, former teammates who have "testified" in the court of public opinion that he used. Why is the "evidence" of their testimony discounted so readily and others so readily accepted?

Hypocrisy, Hypocrisy, Hypocrisy...and Bonds at 740.

SUNDAY, APRIL 22, 2007

http://slavieboy.blogspot.com/2007/04/hypocrisy-hypocrisy-hypocrisy.html

I think I've about had it with the blatant stupidity of braying jack-asses like this.

Somebody on this planet needs to complete the Honesty and Integrity Trifecta (we'll call it the HIT for short) for me before I give them an ear on this issue. 

That is, whenever I hear or read somebody blast Bonds, (and of course they know everything he's done or didn't do, because he's always been so open and accommodating with his time with the media) I ask, "what do you think about Clemens, might he be cheating to get the results he's getting at an advanced age?"
 "Oh no, no way".

How about Lance Armstrong, couldn't he have done something to help him defeat not only Cancer but his competitors, all of whom seem to be on something? Nobody except the French seems to think he does anything but win Tour de Frances. 

There seems to be just as much of a mountain of real or circumstantial evidence to implicate Clemens or Armstrong from what I've seen, heard or read. But we gleefully leak information on the one hand and blissfully redact in the other? 

Hate to say, "I told you so" but when Armstrong spills his guts to Oprah -- and I fully believe he will or his people would have been out in force with denials of recent reports that he will do just that  -- then everything I was saying six or seven years ago and more about the climate, the culture, the media and the chosen few who were exempted from being publicly vilified and pilloried by the machine that creates false "folk devils" and "moral panics" will be proven to be true!!  This is the media's modus operandi and I've been railing about it for some time.

Good luck explaining why you hid behind the skirts of cancer patients and our inherent distrust of the French to keep the press off your trail, Lance. Hopefully, Oprah presses you on this aspect of your prior denials.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_panic

A moral panic is an intense feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order.^[1] According to Stanley Cohen, author of Folk Devils and Moral Panics (1972) and credited as creator of the term, a moral panic occurs when "[a] condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests".^[2] Those who start the panic when they fear a threat to prevailing social or cultural values are known by researchers as moral entrepreneurs, while people who supposedly threaten the social order have been described as "folk devils".

Moral panics are in essence controversies that involve arguments and social tension and in which disagreement is difficult because the matter at its center is taboo.^[3] The media have long operated as agents of moral indignation, even when they are not consciously engaged in crusading or muckraking. Simply reporting the facts can be enough to generate concern, anxiety or panic.^[4]

Characteristics

Moral panics have several distinct features. According to Goode and Ben-Yehuda, moral panic consists of the following characteristics:

• Concern – There must be awareness that the behaviour of the group or category in question is likely to have a negative impact on society.

• Hostility – Hostility towards the group in question increases, and they become "folk devils". A clear division forms between "them" and "us".

• Consensus – Though concern does not have to be nationwide, there must be widespread acceptance that the group in question poses a very real threat to society. It is important at this stage that the "moral entrepreneurs" are vocal and the "folk devils" appear weak and disorganised.

• Disproportionality – The action taken is disproportionate to the actual threat posed by the accused group.

• Volatility – Moral panics are highly volatile and tend to disappear as quickly as they appeared due to a wane in public interest or news reports changing to another topic.^[1]

Bonds was just such a "folk devil", the poster boy for all that was wrong with the steroid issue and baseball.

And guys like Lance -- and for a time Clemens and McGwire -- were getting a pass from the "moral panic" that was ginned up to target Bonds specifically. Now these guys are being splattered as well.

And if people don't believe that this type of process is not symptomatic of the type institutional racism that bleeds through almost every aspect of how we institute justice in this country, than they are hopelessly delusional.

And shame on us, all of us, for that -- I have to give credit where credit is due.