to move up and down
Bruce Arthur: There was no contrition and nothing much that qualified as real. This was Lance Armstrong, unable to hide himself, no matter how hard he tried
This was Lance Armstrong, even if he tried to be someone else. He did try, of course: he looked back on his younger self on the podium of the Tour de France, telling people he was sorry for them because they couldn’t believe in miracles, and he pretended to shudder. He tried to act like he regretted some of the things he had done. It was, at long last, impossible to believe.
Armstrong’s two-part interview with Oprah Winfrey will conclude Friday night, and it will be fascinating to see what Lance Armstrong has left, because this part revealed him in a way he surely didn’t intend. From the start it was apparent — there was a list in his head of truths he could tell and truths he could not, and you could see him parsing them in real time. He could say he took performance-enhancing drugs while winning seven Tour de Frances, but he had to insist that he was clean during his comeback in 2009 and 2010, despite evidence to the contrary. He could take some measure of responsibility, but he could not say he was in charge, or that he forced or directed any teammates to use, despite evidence to the contrary, given under oath. He could say he had called Betsy Andreu, but he could not say he had sued Emma O’Reilly. (Oprah.com)
Lance Armstrong admits to doping in Oprah interview: source
After a decade of denial, Lance Armstrong has finally come clean: He used performance-enhancing drugs to win the Tour de France.
The disgraced cyclist made the confession to Oprah Winfrey during an interview taped Monday, a person familiar with the situation told The Associated Press. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the interview is to be broadcast Thursday on Winfrey’s network.
The admission Monday came hours after an emotional apology by Armstrong to the Livestrong charity that he founded and took global on the strength of his celebrity as a cancer survivor who came back to win one of sport’s most grueling events.
The confession was a stunning reversal, after years of public statements, interviews and court battles in which he denied doping and zealously protected his reputation. (Nathalie Magniez/AFP/GettyImages)
Oprah Winfrey may be human after all
As we wait to see what kind of fantastically over-the-top tributes will be produced in North Korea to mark the passing of the fat little dictator with the penchant for cognac and Elvis shades, here’s a suggestion for the minions struggling to come up with something suitably laudatory: start with Oprah Winfrey’s farewell shows as a framework, and go from there.
Gary Clement’s Week in Review for May 22 to 28, 2011
Blue Oprah Cult: Scott Stinson on Oprah’s finale fervor
Mladic ‘too sick’ for extradition, lawyers argue
Canucks hope to put bad luck behind them
‘Long lost cousin’ Obama visits Irish village
Jonathan Kay: I want to support Israel, but Netanyahu is making it difficult
The Auditor-General’s Top 10
Blue Oprah Cult
Oprah’s farewell was plainly about Oprah. This wasn’t a surprise; Oprah has over the years blurred the lines between the person and the brand so successfully that it’s impossible to tell anymore where the human ends and the enterprise begins. So, the end of The Oprah Winfrey Show after 25 years and 4,559 episodes is not simply the end of a long-running television series, it is the denouement of something specific to the woman herself.
Still: the hubris was remarkable.
It’s not just that Famous Person after Famous Person was trotted out to metaphorically kiss her ring, it’s that all of them — Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise, Madonna, Halle Berry, Maria Shriver (!) — proclaimed the goodness that Oprah had bestowed upon the world. They didn’t just congratulate her on a great run, they had to thank her profusely for it. It was a sentiment considerably bolstered by the tributes from various ordinary folk from America and abroad who explained how Oprah had, for example, allowed them to get over the loss of a child or move past the death of their mother. The message was simple: I wouldn’t be where I am today without you, Oprah. (Peter Wynn Thompson/AFP/Getty Images)
Gary Clement’s Week in Review for Jan. 23 to 29, 2011.
See all of Gary Clement’s cartoons and check out our full visual archive.
