Why do some folks, let's face it, mostly Americans, need to believe that he was clean.
I will posit some possibilities.
1. He actually was clean, they are right.
2. They suspect he doped, but feel a process determines opinion versus an individual
3. Vicarious, they aspire to the alpha status only in their dreams is it manifested
4. Nationalism, existential collective culture of America, that creates adversaries where there are none, and attempts to place things in black-white categories like good and evil. Armstrong is a representative of America giving it to the old world countries who no longer have influence as far as yankees are concerned. A metaphor if you will.
5. American dream, born out of the collective culture again. Note: Barry Bonds and Marian Jones and tim Montgomery are less likely to get their dues in this paradigm, strictly for the boy next door done good(sic). This channels many facets of (3) yet is more an external influence on the individual versus endogenous.
6. Cannot separate the cancer philanthropy and the sport.
7. Similar to (2/6) suspect he doped but the means justify ends wrt the good done for cancer community.
America is not the only country that likes to believe their heroes are clean and not doped, and only the former Communist bloc and the People's Republic dope. They are not the only country to hold heroes on a pedestal. But there has been a paucity of investigative journalism in the popular media and the NT Times has only taken to associate wire reporting of the Armstrong issue. Does big business have a stake in this?
