Why Journalist Don't Matter

Did Lance Armstrong take EPO and other PES? I don't know. Right now I do know that all the allegations that have been adjudicated were found to untrue, or at least insufficient to establish Armstrong's guilt. Tyler Hamilton's recent denunciation isn't and doesn't contain anything new. Should the state prove that Armstrong was a drug cheat, well sucks to him.

However, not content to wait for actual evidence of any wrong doing and seemingly unaware that Hamilton's allegations are not new, Andy Baggot of the the Wisconsin State JOurnal's sports page provides more evidence, should it be needed, of essential foolishness of the press here in America. After praising Armstrong's cancer work and thinking that the lying and cheating were fundamentally necessary for the cancer work and deciding that he would do the same thing, Baggot writes:

This is how I choose to reconcile the now overwhelming perception that Armstrong isn’t who he says he is — that he isn’t the person whose incredible story prompted me to buy his books and admire him in this space. 

That's right, he decided on Armstrong's guilt because of an "overwhelming perception," sort of like opposing the end of slavery or the emancipation of women because of the overwhelming perception of their intellectual inferiority.

This is exactly like the rounds of fibbing and lionizing of Ryan following on in the wake of his idiotic budget. An overwhelming perception, although it's unclear about who Baggot his small circle of friends and professional colleagues seems most likely, emerges and then people who really don't not know what they are talking about decided to accept the version offered by whatever spokes model stands in front of the cameras.

It's a small wonder that yesterday's WSJ editorial was a song of praise for old Ryan's dishonest plan to stop paying for health care instead of controlling its cost.