The funny thing about conventional wisdom, even "European conventional wisdom," is that it's usually correct. After an idea is disproved, it changes from conventional wisdom to myth. In a quantifiable sport like cycling, it's easy to estimate the peak performance an athlete can give, and also to estimate the bounds that an exceptional performance can achieve. If an athlete comes along and exceeds those bounds, conventional wisdom will adapt to include the new data -- unless they were just cheating, in which case we'll remember the characteristics of a juiced run and know how to spot one in the future.

The Floyd Landis victory, while initially inspiring to anyone who likes to see an American trounce those limp-wristed Europeans, has turned out to be artificial. The nay-sayers were right after all. What then, are we to make of your analogy? Nothing, I say, because bad analogies aren't really worth refuting. You got carried away, wanting to associate your dog with this week's top dog (after all, they both have the same color of spots, so that makes them the same, right?).

Perhaps a better analogy can be made between the hometown fans (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/more/08/05/ landis.scene.ap/index.html) who continue to support Landis despite his shameful actions, and certain bloggers who continue to support President Bush despite... well... I'll go with Hanlon on this one: "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
Joey | 08.06.06 - 3:54 am | #