New York Times Writes Lance Armstrong May be Stripped of Tour De France Titles

There will be some interesting debate surrounding Lance Armstrong and his seven Tour De France titles. The New York Times is one of the first outlets I have seen recently ask if Lance Armstrong's seven wins could be yanked from him. That would be sad indeed, especially when you consider the entire sport probably dopes, and other Tour De France champions like Bjarne Riis and Marco Pantani had their doping scandals and managed to hang on to their titles.

Next week, Roger Clemens will go on trial in Washington, accused of lying to Congress about using performance-enhancing drugs. As the beefy right-hander settles in at the defendant’s table, his fellow Texan Lance Armstrong will no doubt be sitting somewhere uncomfortably watching the world’s greatest cyclists pedal through the countryside of Brittany while wondering if he, too, might soon face a criminal trial and possibly be stripped of his Tour de France trophies.

Armstrong owns a record seven of those trophies; Clemens has a record seven Cy Young Awards. The parallels don’t end there. Both men were raised by strong-willed single mothers. And now, both of their fates are inextricably linked to that of another man, Jeff Novitzky, a special agent for the Food and Drug Administration.

It was Novitzky who turned Clemens’s former personal trainer and central accuser, Brian McNamee, into a government witness. And it’s Novitzky who is leading the effort to prove that Armstrong was taking banned substances during his improbable run of first-place finishes at the Tour de France.

On its face, the story couldn’t be more straightforward: Heroic government agent goes gunning for a couple of Texas-size cheats. So why am I having such a hard time rooting for the guy?

Now that's funny, calling government thug Jeff Novitzky, who obviously has overstepped the limits of the Constitution in his gamble to make a name for himself, a hero. Not sure what gives the federal government the authority to investigate an American athlete who lived in Europe almost all year, probably dope in Europe according to testimony, and raced in Europe the jurisdiction to make Lance Armstrong's life hell. He's another out of control bureaucrat with too much power.

At least the New York Times gets a little bit of that right.

Armstrong’s critics might call him a cheat and a liar, but what law did he break? The government may find a way to charge him with defrauding the United States Postal Service, one of his sponsors, saying he falsely claimed he was clean. This may be a legitimate legal argument, but it won’t be easy to prove. More to the point, is it worth trying to prove?

Of course not, and it's costing millions of your tax dollars for Novitzky to play big bad government thug. And besides, the US Postal service was given a sweetheart deal for sponsorship, and they never owned the team to begin with. They were just offered a deal in which minimum investment was made to have their image plastered all over Europe as to promote their services. This was a good deal for the USPS all along, and they really should have nothing to complain about.

At least on Congressman is starting to raise an eyebrow over the Armstrong investigation as it appears Novitzky has traveled all around Europe on your tax dollars. That's got to be a whole lot more exciting than travelling to Major League Baseball cities tracking Clemons and Bonds.

A Georgia congressman, Jack Kingston, has asked the F.D.A. for a financial accounting of the globe-trotting Armstrong investigation. Whatever we have spent to date, it will rise exponentially if a prosecution goes forward.

It's time to get the federal government out of sports. The American people pay good money to watch these athletes, freaks of nature, perform. Knowing Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were probably juicing, few seats in the ball park were left empty in protest. Right Cardinal and Cubs fans?