The latest delusion from Dan Empfield of Slowtwitch. He manages to hit the now standard talking point of blaming Leipheimer, Hincapie, and others for Armstrong's bullying.
i predict, the beginning of a slow resurrection for lance. this is going to be a heavily covered case. i think a lot of people are going to wonder why the USPS (or the DOJ on behalf of the USPS), thinks that it alone is worthy to claw back the money paid to an entity that most casual observers are going to see fulfilled its end of the bargain, and that delivered back to the USPS multiples of what was paid to it, by the USPS' own estimates.
for those who are REALLY interested in anti-doping instead of just having every possible bad thing happen to lance irrespective of whether he actually deserves it, i don't see how making lance a sympathetic figure serves your purpose. rather, in 6 months, if lance is the object of popular sympathy because people do consider lance scapegoated through this case, and if people start to wonder how come levi, george, et al, are back racing even tho they spectated everything lance did, knew it all, and said not one word in aid to betsy andreu, emma o'reilly, et al, then i don't know how this serves the purpose.
otoh, it seems to me that the very best way to get ALL the questions answered is to remove the over-the-top legal threats of jail time, hundreds of millions in claw backs, etc. you don't need to give lance the same racing privileges enjoyed by his cowardly ex teammates. rather, just stop the over-charging. i think this is a case of lance-hatred so overarching it clouds the actual fight against doping.
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman