Lie Strong

Lance Armstrong's world is falling to pieces all around him. After the USADA report revealed that he was at the center of the USA cycling team's performance-enhancing drug use there seems to be no doubt that he is guilty as charged. He has been stripped of his Tour de France titles. He has already lost seven sponsors, including Nike, Anheuser-Busch and Trek cycling. He has resigned as chairman of the Livestrong Foundation, but he remains on the board, though he's currently on leave. And the revelations revive old questions that Fox News had about whether his drug use was the cause of his cancer in the first place.

Questions on doping dogged Armstrong for almost two decades. But people saw how he beat cancer, persevered and went on to win the Tour de France seven times and were inspired. They wanted to believe that people can win without cheating. How many people have you seen wearing those yellow plastic bracelets?

Many people's support of Armstrong before this report was unwavering. In the wake of the report interviews with Armstrong supporters said they believed him because of how consistently and forcefully he denied the charges. He spoke with such conviction that they believed he couldn't possibly be lying.

And it was at that point I was reminded of people's reactions to Mitt Romney's debate performances. "He sounds so strong." "He was so forceful." "He speaks with such conviction."

Even though Romney won't specify all the "loopholes" he'll close to make up for the whopping tax cuts he wants to give everyone, especially the wealthy, he says it with such conviction that some people believe he must be right. Mitt's entire response to criticism of his budget amounts to a forceful, convincingly enunciated "The numbers add up because I say so!" But the latest study shows that Romney's numbers still don't add up.


As with Lance Armstrong, just because someone can Lie Strong doesn't mean they actually Live Strong. Mitt Romney's plan consists of recycled Bush policies of lowering taxes on the rich, eliminating regulation of the financial industries that caused our economic meltdown in the first place, and sending sick people into overcrowded emergency rooms of hospitals that are going broke because their patients can't pay them.

Under Obama we are definitely better off than we were four years ago: the stock market has almost doubled, returning to the near-record highs during the housing bubble, but without the lies and corruption the boom was built on. Millions of jobs have been regained. Housing starts are returning to the levels we saw before the recession. Fox Business News reports that Amazon.com is planning to hire 50,000 seasonal workers, many of whom will have full time positions, while Macy's, Kohl's, Target and Wal-Mart are hiring hundreds of thousands more.

Obviously they think that the economy is on the mend and that lots of customers will be coming in this Christmas. Is that a quiet vote of confidence for the president from business?