Lance Armstrong and Willful Blindness

I had the chance last week to read Wheelmen: Lance Armstrong, the Tour de France, and the Greatest Sports Conspiracy Ever, a page-turner with a bit of a hyperbolic subtitle. It is, obviously, about Lance Armstrong and the cover-up of his decades of doping and his rather vindictive streak against anyone who spoke out about him. 

It was a great book, deconstructing the Myth of Armstrong--Cancer Survivor, Warrior, Beater of the French--that he built to insulate himself from accusations of doping. I was blown away at times by just how fiercely competitive the man is. In the end, when he agreed to do the Oprah interview and come clean (sort of) about his history of doping and general a-holeishness, it wasn't to alleviate some burden on his soul or to try to seek restitution and move forward with his life, but because he hoped that it would shorten his lifetime ban from competition and allow him to be a professional triathlete. I still have trouble believing that he feels he did anything wrong. The last believer in the Armstrong myth might be Armstrong himself. Which is very sad and quite pathetic.

As I read I recalled how vigorously I defended Lance in the midst of his unworldly winning streak at the Tour. The accusations were out there, of course, but I never gave credence to a single one. And this wasn't merely because I wanted to believe that someone could come back from cancer and do something as incredible as what he was doing, but also because I had a very sharp ethnocentrism at the time that told me that Americans rule and all of those frogs griping about drugs are just sore that one of our boys went over their and whupped them at their own game. USA! USA! Rumors of Lance's douchiness were everywhere at the time, but he was OUR douche. So it was less a matter of thinking Lance was a great dude and more of a matter of thumbing our noses at the French. Which is very strange. And allows us to blind ourselves to horrible realities. But we all do this.

I listen to Rush Limbaugh some at work. Never on purpose. The guy I share on office with likes conservative radio and if I don't have something else on first I get to listen to Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Dave Ramsey, the conservative trinity. President Obama could disarm Iran, get unemployment under 4%, balance the budget, and drink some of Rush's tea during a press conference and the next morning Limbaugh would still be calling him a wimpy socialist.

Limbaugh is an extreme example and it is only to illustrate the point. When our default is opposition we are blinded to glaring realities. Like the fact that Obama is probably not the antichrist. Or that the French might have actual reasons for believing Armstrong is doping, such as HE FREAKING WAS THE WHOLE TIME! But when Obama=bad or French=arrogant + jealous then we get to skim over the harder truths. We can say, well I wouldn't Lance to date my daughter, but screw you Frenchies. 

My guess is that most of the people who defended Lance for so long did so for the same reason. If it was a British guy who did the same thing or, God forbid, a Frenchman it barely would have registered over here. Who has heard of Miguel Indurain? But he was our national hero, and in the wake of 9/11 we were looking for national heroes. We were also pissed at the French. The timing makes sense and Lance exploited that well. But the shoe eventually dropped, as it had to. And those of who were so willfully blind for so long were confronted by a harsh light.