Millions Still Support a Fraud

because that fraud has done so much for cancer awareness and the like. But nobody would have heard of Lance Armstrong had he not cheated his way into sport immortality. Livestong would not exist were it not for the fraudulent way Armstrong got his fame.

It's all so disgusting. Early in the controversy, I was willing to give Lance the benefit of a doubt, but now so many people have come forward and doping was and is so rampant, it strained credulity to think he wasn't part of the cheating culture in cycling.

But hubris got the best of him. It's the fatal flaw of driven men everywhere. He had to come back. He had to try France another time. And in doing so he reset the clock on the statute of limitations. He gave the federal government an opportunity to look through his life. If the government hadn't looked at Armstrong over the last two years it's hard to imagine USADA gathering the evidence to do what it is doing now.

He would have remained untainted. He would have remained a seven-time winner of the Tour de France.

Instead, he sent out a flimsy statement explaining why the man who never quit was suddenly quitting. "I refuse to participate in a process that is so one-sided and unfair," he wrote.

He now joins such luminaries as Pete Rose and "Shoeless" Joe Jackson. What a legacy:

Armstrong used to point a finger at his accusers, saying they were jealous or unable to believe in miracles. (He was the miracle.) His followers believed. Then, his friends and teammates started to turn.

They had spent their careers doing everything they could to protect him during the Tour de France and to help him win.

They were trying to write books and get light sentences for their own doping issues, Armstrong insisted. His followers believed. Others were only more and more convinced he was lying.

Armstrong built the divide, played off it, protected himself with it.

Utterly shameless:

Meanwhile, though, only the very loyal or the very gullible would be persuaded by Armstrong's self-serving rant against the USADA, which he accuses of engaging in a "witch hunt" against him. It's laughable to think that Armstrong, a battler who routinely unleashes teams of lawyers against his accusers, would give up now simply because of "the toll this has taken on my family, and my work for our foundation and on me." Or because he doesn't think the USADA's arbitration process is fair. Make no mistake: Armstrong is quitting because anti-doping officials have assembled too many former teammates ready to testify against him, and too much physical evidence, for him to overcome in a fair forum. Much as fans of Armstrong -- and I count myself among them -- wish it weren't so, the greatest cyclist of all time isn't. He is a cheat.

Maybe there is a political future for him.

ABC video: