The Armstrong connection

Boy, can Americans be a bunch of dopes.

So easily hoodwinked yet so cowed by the powers that be, whether mercantile or political, that when scandal becomes not just evident but proven, they fail to rebel, preferring instead a trip to the mall, or keeping up with the Kardashians.

As with most battles between hoodwinked and hoodwinker though, the real blame falls on the latter’s shoulders.

Case in point Lance Armstrong, cancer survivor (admirable) and newly dethroned seven-time Tour de France champ.

Armstrong’s repeated denials of doping were always about as convincing as Bill Clinton’s ersatz sincerity when declaring he “did not have sexual relations with that woman.”

Of course, drugging yourself silly and on the sly in order to make milllions in intelligence-insulting endorsement deals win bike races is more serious an infraction than fibbing about your antics in the boudoir, unless you are a hypocritical Republican, in which case maybe they’re on par.

Even as the doping allegations dogged Armstrong, it seemed like 47% of Americans were wearing those stupid yellow thingies around their wrists. I guess the price was right, but seriously, no one looks good in yellow. Unless you’re a bumblebee.

You have to hand it to Lance as a multitasker: doping himself right as he was duping the French and Americans.

You’d think that now that the USADA’s Reasoned Decision,  published on Thursday, is out, Americans might relegate their rubber bracelets to the recycling bin, or that Armstrong himself might come clean in public for a change.

Nope. Instead he tweets that he’s just “hanging with his family.”

That’s nice. You’ve just made the French look fantastique, trashed America’s already hurting image around the world, and worse of all, tarnished the sport of professional cycling for an entire generation that deserves so much better.

But hey, just continue to “hang” at home. If there’s anything Americans excel at more than taking down a hero, it’s feigning casualness even in the face of severe sh*it going down.

An invisible line of odious character, fed by snake oil and subterfuge, extends all the way from the vile Lance Armstrong’s twisted world to the man presently occupying the White House.

As the middle class, black and white and other, continues to see its fortunes slide, as America continues to get kicked in the teeth economically by tigers from abroad, and as the Middle East heaves at the seams with preventable conflicts, Obama goes to fundraisers, breezes onto the set of the The Daily Show,  makes remarks about how amazing Michelle is, all the while pursing his lofty, strange and yes, sometimes duplicitous agendas.

Your house — not the White one, but the world — is catching fire and all is super sababa. Except that it isn’t.

Americans know by and large not to trust lawyers, but they should also know better than to trust a man who never admits he’s wrong. That alone carries with it the soupçon of an impostor.

Americans have just a few weeks more to show the world they’re tired of being duped, and at the end of the long day, that they’re not the ones who are the dopes.

That’s hope.