At the risk of sounding like a condescending scold — in other words, becoming like those I like to scold — I offer up a post from January written on the heels of media excuse-making about Baseball Hall of Fame voting (and in one case, the willful abstinence from casting a ballot).

The reason was the presence of suspected steroids users Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, among others, on the ballot. I’ll insert the second paragraph from that post at the end of the second paragraph of this post, since it’s particularly noteworthy given the news this week about major steroids-related suspensions about to come down in Major League Baseball. I wrote then:

This absolutism has at times been a disservice to the game, because it tends to whitewash or distort history. While historical interpretation is a largely subjective endeavor, the burden of placing the accomplishments of its greatest players in a proper, fair and accurate historical context has become an increasingly troublesome one.

The report at ESPN.com that MLB investigators were coming down especially harshly on reputed steroids distributor Tony Bosch — mainly by threatening him with crippling legal action — hasn’t generated much in the way of a full-throated endorsement of what would be severe suspensions to Ryan Braun, Alex Rodriguez and nearly two dozen other players.

The reported punishments are just that for now, not yet announced by MLB. Yet baseball’s pursuit in this case is already under close scrutiny in some media circles. Coming down the hardest is Patrick Hruby of Sports on Earth, who makes the usual connections to the War on Drugs, and how sports entities, despite stricter and stricter testing, can’t really make a dent unless they get the assistance of, or use methods approaching those in the law enforcement community.

He extensively quotes Penn State professor Charles Yesalis, a noted sports doping expert and author of “The Steroids Game,” published in 1998, about the time anti-doping institutions were being created. Fifteen years later, he says that while athletes aren’t particularly skilled at “evading aggressive law enforcement,” testing may never be fully effective:

“What would work? Aggressive, undercover police sting operations. I’m talking handcuffs. Put it on ‘Cops.’ But are you willing to do that against Penn State, USC, the Baltimore Ravens, the Los Angeles Lakers, on a sustained basis?”

This is especially alarming to think about given how MLB is considered to have the toughest anti-steroids provisions of any professional sports league in North America.

The Biogenesis case could very well be a tipping point in escalating police-style investigation of suspected steroids users. But Yesalis thinks overly aggressive probes stand to backfire with a sports-loving public that hasn’t shown the same zeal to get rid of “cheaters” as sports league and agencies thirsting after good public relations.

The demonizing of steroids that the scolds think is coming from rank-and-file sports lovers is rather the handiwork of zealots, especially in the media, who can’t bear to have the “purity” of the games as they have known them tainted in any way.

Yesalis concludes that the onus really is on the fans, and that may be the biggest problem of all:

“Look, the best way to deal with [drugs in sports] is for all fans to boycott. It would be cleaned up almost instantaneously. But nobody gives a damn. In fact, these drugs make the product better for viewing and enjoyment. Do you want to watch a beauty contest where everyone is overweight and wearing no makeup?”

So where are some of these scolds now? Eerily quiet, or approaching the subject from a different perspective. Howard Bryant of ESPN.com, author of “Juicing the Game” and who sent in a blank Hall of Fame ballot, opted to pursue the labor angle, saying long-term suspensions would upset a hard-won peace stemming from the 1994 strike.

Surprisingly, Bryant is rather even-handed here, something I didn’t think possible on the subject:

The real issue is baseball’s attempt to suspend players for their association with a wellness clinic, without actual positive-test violations of the league’s drug policy. Melky Cabrera the one player linked to Biogenesis who has tested positive, already served his 50-game suspension. Unless documentation shows –assuming Bosch’s documentation is better, say, than Brian McNamee’s decade-old syringes and gauze in a Coke can — that Cabrera was still using PEDs after his suspension last season, it seems inconceivable that baseball would be able to suspend him again for essentially discovering the source of the original offense.

As I said, it’s all tied to serious labor strife Bryant predicts would surface if MLB wields a heavy hammer. It’s good to see at least a tiny bit of tacit acknowledgement that accused dopers do indeed have rights, a benefit of the doubt he wouldn’t confer upon them for Hall of Fame purposes. Bryant goes on:

The public is fatigued by the steroid era, and there was an expectation that players, especially star players such as Braun and Rodriguez, would act more responsibly.

But it seems the better option, or at least an accompanying one, would be to encourage player cooperation to glean information about how the Biogenesis 20 beat their tests (if they were in fact tested at all during the proper time frames).

Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated, another A List doping scold, calls Bosch’s cooperation “a major breakthrough” for MLB, but otherwise is strangely muted.

Then there’s Bob Ford of The Philadelphia Inquirer, who uses the “cheating” word (and hails from a household with another sportswriter doping scold of the Lance Armstrong variety) as he offers up pure milquetoast:

Baseball has been the most successful – or perhaps the most willing – in the fight against performance-enhancing drugs. Maybe that is the result of the bad burn suffered by the sport when it giddily accepted the popularity boost during the record-destroying Steroid Era.

How has the sport been “burned?” Ford doesn’t elaborate. When it comes to the scolds making such declarations, you’re expected to take them at their word.

Even if their words appear to be falling on more and more deaf ears.

The Schoolmarm might be the oblivious of all, not even bothering to examine the process of the MLB investigation of Biogenesis, much less the sordid prospect of baseball climbing into bed with the likes of Bosch. Why? Because of the children:

Parents with teenagers in sports, boys and girls who studies show are already trying PEDs to play better, should be thankful that their kids will see the news of more athletes being disgraced by doping.

The next day she visited the subject again, citing how the public turned against Lance Armstrong “almost overnight after he admitted to using PEDs in January.” But it’s more likely the public was disturbed by shameful stories of his treatment of associates, team members and others in his circle who finally outed him as a jerk above all. Bosch is mentioned only in passing, since the worst offenders here are the “cheaters” — whether they’ve been found guilty of doping or not.

In linking to Tim Marchman’s scorching evisceration of the Biogenesis probe on Deadspin, Joshua Benton of the Nieman Journalism Lab may have had the most prescient comment on this when he Tweeted on Thursday:

Is there any topic in which the trad media/new media divide is stronger than PEDs?

Andy Hutchins asks the essential question about the AP’s examination of PED use in college football:

“So the point of this ‘BOO THERE ARE STEROIDS IN SPORTS’ report is what?”

That is the point, and Tim Keown is happy to pile on:

“High school kids are getting and using steroids with the complicit approval of their parents and coaches. This isn’t news. Middle-aged rec-league cyclists are taking PEDs to improve their times and beat their buddies in weekend races. To think that a significant number of college athletes in a billion-dollar business with hopes of professional riches aren’t willing to get an illegal edge is ludicrous. Of course they are, especially when there’s little to no fear of getting caught.

“But college linemen don’t have hallowed records to break or a bizarrely sanctified hall of fame run by a chosen priesthood of voters. They’re just faceless guys wearing helmets and abusing their bodies for the entertainment of many and the profit of some.”

This is what the next phase of the post-Armstrong War on Steroids meme will sound like, and it will be repeated over and over and over.

In the name of the children.

Millard Baker raises even better points about cycling anti-doping crusader David Millar’s tut-tutting of the support for Armstrong from Alberto Contador and Miguel Indurain:

“There are likely cultural differences in the perception of doping. Perhaps steroids and PEDs are not stigmatized to the same degree in Spain. Perhaps doping does not have the same moral significance in Spain. But Millar’s arrogant defense of the superiority of the ‘Anglo-Saxon [puritanical] mentality’ certainly can’t be the best approach to doping in sports.”

Byliner reports that its most-read sports story of 2012 is Andrew Tilin’s “I couldn’t be more positive,” published in Outside magazine in May and recounting the year he spent taking T for a book project. Not surprisingly, Tilin felt the wrath of competitive cyclists whose existences are routinely scrutinized by the PED police:

“I’m not saying that what I did is smart or cool, or that my kids should someday be proud of me. But I discovered a few things, like how accessible performance-enhancing drugs really are. They’re so easy to acquire and safely use that I still wonder how many other graybeards dope.

“While I offer sincere apologies and would never again betray my fellow racers, cycling’s organizers, or its governing bodies, I’ll be honest: If you threw out the rules and put a doctor in front of me holding syringes? The temptation would be hard to resist.”

My objections to the War on Steroids are not subtle, nor are they conflicted, as I have written here and here and here.

The caveat has always been that I’m more concerned about the public unaccountability of the taxpayer-funded USADA than athletes who are presumed guilty merely by being charged with doping. Including Lance Armstrong.

But expressing a desire to decriminalize the use of anabolic steroids and halt the federal government’s investigative and prosecutorial powers in this area isn’t the same as cheering on athletes who dope.

And here’s where some conflicted feelings emerge. Ballots for the 2013 class of the Baseball Hall of Fame are due by Dec. 31, and a grand conundrum is unfolding over whether Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro are fit for Cooperstown.

Their names are all on the current ballot, but it’s unlikely they will get in, at least for now, because of the state of our public discourse on steroids and sports.

A number of other candidates have spoken out against the inclusion of steroids users, namely Barry Larkin and Dale Murphy, who is in his last year on a Hall of Fame ballot.

If I had a vote, both of these gentlemen would be in, especially Murphy, who played on bad teams in my hometown for too many years, which may ultimately cost him a spot in a place where he truly belongs. I do appreciate Larkin’s appeal to respect the “integrity of what the Hall of Fame stands for.”

These are important points to make, and a valuable conversation to have.

But as longtime sports journalist and Hall of Fame voter Ron Rapoport wrote recently, it’s a rather one-sided discussion, given the moralizing habits of his own tribe.

Writing on L.A. Observed over the weekend, Rapoport took the audacious view that all of those stained or dogged by steroids charges who are on the ballot ought to be voted in:

“I believe the steroid generation of players, of which these five players are among the most conspicuously accused, may well have saved baseball. I also believe these players’ greatest achievements will outlast not only their careers, but their lifetimes.

“Those of us who covered baseball during the strike that wiped out the 1994 playoffs and World Series well remember how bitter the players, owners and fans were then, and how dire the outlook for the game’s immediate future seemed. We also remember how the home run battles between Sosa and McGwire wiped away this bitterness in an instant and brought the fans running back to the ballpark in forgiveness and delight. Bonds’ assault on all-time home run records in the seasons that followed was equally transfixing as was Clemens’ age-defying march to 354 victories.”

Sports columnist Mike Lupica wrote a book celebrating the Sosa-McGwire duel, then became a come-to-Jesus anti-steroids scold when “Big Mac” was hauled before some of the same sanctimonious old birds in Congress who once hailed him for his feats.

While steroids have been banned by MLB since 1991, there wasn’t a uniform testing procedure in place until 2003. How can you draw a line across the careers of these individuals in “The Steroids Era” when the headmasters of the game couldn’t be bothered to enforce their own rules?

The moralists like to claim that players ought to observe a code of honor, but in reality few were paying much attention until anti-doping zealots gained enough media traction during the last decade. Former pitcher Tommy House (who caught Hank Aaron’s 715th home run ball in the Braves’ bullpen) is quoted by Rapoport as saying that “enhancements have been around forever.” Concluded Rapoport:

“I wonder where in the game’s lily-white, indentured-servitude, amphetamine-dispensing past, we can find total purity.”

I admit to some serious ambivalence about how I would vote, if I could. But ESPN’s Buster Olney, in assessing the obligations of the voter and claiming “it’s the writers, and the writers alone, who are the bottleneck,” really unlocks the issue for me:

“So the baseball writers ought to get out of the way rather than acting like overzealous crossing guards empowered by their ballots. The writers’ work should always reflect history, not determine legacies; that’s the work of the players, the good and the bad.”

Some of these voters are no more likely to vote for anyone linked to steroids than some on the Veterans Committee would welcome the recently departed Marvin Miller into the fold. That’s more than an omission, but a scandal bigger than anything Barry Bonds may have pumped into his body.

It’s official: Lance Armstrong has been stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and has been banned for life — even though he’s retired. UCI, the international cycling union, will not challenge the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency’s punishment, and the event will have no official champion from 1999-2005.

Says UCI president Pat McQuaid, long derided as an Armstrong apologist:

“Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling. . . He deserves to be forgotten.”

So there.

During his announcement today McQuaid also quoted John F. Kennedy, yedy, yedy, yedy.

Now cycling’s long dirty nightmare is over, and the cleansing and healing can begin. Right?

So this is the end of it then? Right?

Think again.

USADA boss Travis Tygart wants more, plenty more:

“For cycling to truly move forward and for the world to know what went on in cycling, it is essential that an independent and meaningful Truth and Reconciliation Commission be established so that the sport can fully unshackle itself from the past. There are many more details of doping that are hidden, many more doping doctors, and corrupt team directors and the omerta has not yet been fully broken.”

Tygart’s proxies in the media aren’t entirely ready to claim victory either. David Walsh of The Sunday Times, who’s been on the rampage against Armstrong for more than a decade, just Tweeted:

“This is a good day for clean cycling and it would get better if Hein Verbruggan and Pat McQuaid took the honourable course and resigned.”

(Point of information: Verbruggen is McQuaid’s predecessor at UCI.)

Bonnie D. Ford of ESPN.com, also on Twitter:

“Looks like UCI missed an opportunity to graciously admit it could have done better. #understatement”

What do these people want? Vengeance clearly isn’t enough. Nor is the rapid loss of sponsors, including Armstrong’s last corporate endorsement, from Oakley, which severed all ties on Monday.

There’s little left to take away from Armstrong, so the moorings of his “drug ring,” namely the institutions that allowed him to operate for years, must be dismantled, preferably with the absolutist tactics of USADA and all of those who claim Armstrong’s alleged deeds to have been nothing short of evil.

The old saw about destroying the sport in order to save it could be inserted here, for the tack advocated by Tygart would surely result in complete destruction. That’s clearly what he thinks needs to happen to make the sport open to “clean riders.” But the unaccountable zeal of this individual is what needs to be scrutinized as much as “dirty” athletes.

Since when did it become Tygart’s place to recommend how individual sports “unshackle” themselves from their past? His agency is responsible only for investigating American athletes for doping in certain Olympic sports, and nothing more.

USADA’s power to strip Armstrong of trophies won on foreign soil, including several titles won before that agency even existed, has rarely been called into question. That’s because so much “establishment” media has been reveling in schadenfreude since Armstrong decided not to appeal the USADA’s decision through its stacked arbitration process.

I’m more troubled by Tygart and USADA going forward than anything Armstrong might have done in the past. Because what happens from here is clearly emboldened by the events of the past month. In so many ways, the case against Armstrong hasn’t really been about Armstrong at all.

It’s been about making him an example for what the War on Steroids is all about — an extension of our fabulously wasteful, destructive War on Drugs.

The USADA, which gets most of its funding from the U.S. Office of Drug Control Policy, has a remarkable streak against athletes who dare to challenge it. In the 30-some-odd USADA cases that have been been appealed, only one has been won by an athlete in the arbitration process.

Yet despite the earnest efforts of a Valparaiso University law professor and his students working for free to defend her, sprinter LaTasha Jenkins’ career was destroyed before it ever really began. This makes for even more tragic and harrowing reading in light of the hysteria against Armstrong.

Where was the indignation from Walsh, Ford, et al, over what happened to Jenkins?

You don’t have to do much of a Google search to discover that they couldn’t be bothered. The compulsion to get to the “truth” about Armstrong has trumped all other considerations, even chronicling how the USADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency and the Court of Arbitration for Sport operate: Largely without due process and with little to no transparency.

I realize mine is a distinctly minority view. But whatever you think of Armstrong, I fear that the self-serving, self-righteousness of people like Travis Tygart and other anti-doping zealots is becoming a greater threat to fair play in sports than any athlete injecting himself with EPO ever has been.

I saw a Tweet this morning from a not-obscure sportswriter I know by acquaintance, moments after the news broke that Nike was terminating its endorsement contract with Lance Armstrong:

“Guilty.”

It was a retweet, with that single word as his response.

And the media self-righteousness took off from there, with some wondering when Armstrong might “come clean,” because he obviously should, and if Sally Jenkins, a columnist for The Washington Post who collaborated with the cyclist on two books, would end her silence since the USADA issued its “reasoned decision” last week.

Nike explained that the “overwhelming evidence” contained in the USADA documents led to its decision, although the sporting goods behemoth will continue to work with Livestrong, the non-profit organization Armstrong founded to advocate for cancer survivors.

Armstrong, however, will be stepping down as chairman of the board.

Well, of course he’s guilty if all this is happening. This is the final proof. What else could it be?

It’s stunning that journalists I know who are more jaded than I am, and who have long groused about Nike’s reputation for provocative commercials and promotional shamelessness, aren’t seeing this as the inevitable fallout of a once-admired athlete being brought into such disrepute.

First came the thundering pronouncements of “guilt,” without the USADA actually having to prove it. The public relations nightmare was the next thing to address, and Nike has now done that.

A week ago, Nike was standing by the seven-time Tour de France champion, who still faces the possibility of being stripped of his titles. Armstrong, the company said in its official statement, “misled Nike for more than a decade.” Oh, and “Nike does not condone the use of illegal performance enhancing drugs in any manner.”

Emphasis on the illegal.

Because we are firmly in the midst of a rather fanatical War on Drugs in Sports, we have to make things illegal that ought not to be. I’m not advocating the use of anabolic steroids in disdaining the heavy hand of the U.S. government, which funds most USADA operations. Since it does not have to go before an actual court of law and does not have to meet the highest burden of proof, this agency can prosecute alleged dopers in the court of public opinion, and much more effectively.

And because most of our mainstream sports media is complicit in adhering to the USADA’s zero tolerance zealotry, we will continue to have such juvenile, black-and-white conversation about the topic, if you can say there is a conversation at all.

Cheater. Fraud. No, “the greatest fraud in American sports.” Nah nah nah nah nah.

The hectoring and moralizing have been so one-sided from mainstream media outlets that it’s easy to forget that we really don’t know much about the deep science of these substances, how harmful to the body they may be, and how much (or little) they actually enhance athletics performance.

We don’t have the time, or the patience, to plumb into the nuances of this, or to ask other glaring questions. Such as: “Why wasn’t Armstrong caught earlier?”

The media establishment will have you believe this was due to a lack of advanced testing technology and a code of “omerta” among cyclists.The most offended journalists in all of this have been the least interested in any kind of critical examination of how the anti-doping authorities go about their business, and especially why the USADA has investigated allegations about a retired cyclist that in some cases predate its own existence.

But one journalist found plenty of time to dig into where Livestrong’s money goes.

There also is zero tolerance of pondering any possibility that there may be little that can be done to rid from cycling a widespread pattern of doping that existed long before Armstrong came along and that has reached far beyond his influence.

After writing what I thought would be my last rant about the Armstrong case last week, I came across “A Pharmacy on Wheels,” an exhaustive compilation of that sport’s history with doping, going back more than a century. It was written in 1998, just as Armstrong was hitting his stride and three years before the USADA was created.

If you think the USADA’s crusade is going to lead to “clean riding,” read this and think again.

To suggest Nike is cutting ties with Armstrong because of his alleged “guilt” is to misunderstand Nike. Armstrong “got caught,” and this presented a public relations problem.

At least one sportswriter I know did have the temerity to point out on Twitter that Nike realized it couldn’t a lot of Armstrong T-shirts anymore. Among other regalia.

So today happened. It’s all about the brand.

My previously expressed views (here and here) on the “investigation” of Lance Armstrong by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency haven’t changed with this week’s release of its “Reasoned Decision,” a lengthy accumulation of its case against him.

Neither has the seemingly consensus view that the disgraced seven-time Tour de France champion (for now) is pure evil, and that the unaccountable agency that gets most of its funding from American taxpayers is inherently good in ridding the scourge of doping in sports by any means necessary.

But in the name of fairness, some of the most touted analysts of the “Reasoned Decision” — how about that for an official euphemism? — need to be included here, for as much as I think they are the essence of rhetorical unfairness, all in the name of rooting “cheaters” out of the world of athletics.

To repeat this disclaimer: I’m not a fan of Lance Armstrong and I’m not in favor of doping. But neither should it be criminalized, and it’s dismaying to see the mainstream media and the public equate steroid use with real crime: Lance Armstrong as the drug lord of cycling, a Pablo Escobar in tight shorts.

ESPN.com’s Bonnie D. Ford, one of the top cycling journalists in any country, is as well-versed in this case as anyone. Yet her take is loaded with USADA-style hyperbole:

“There is no other logical conclusion. After today, anyone who remains unconvinced simply doesn’t want to know.”

And yes, while Armstrong was far from the only cyclist alleged to have been doping, there’s this:

“Every participant in the sport-wide Ponzi scheme of that time was to some extent the product of a warped environment, including the champion. What sets Armstrong apart is that his competitive success, fueled by illicit means and synergized with his comeback from cancer, made it possible for him to transcend cycling and reap greater profits than anyone else.”

Ponzi scheme. Comparing a truly illegal practice against one that is not a crime is a common tactic in these arguments. Ford dismisses the lack of a positive test against Armstrong, saying these calls are “meritless” because some of the witnesses against him:

” . . . as a group over time used banned substances and methods on hundreds of occasions. They avoided being busted partly due to luck, partly due to strategic planning by doctors and trainers, and partly due to the warnings they got about testing itself.”

This raises the issue of why years-ago allegations, in a time of less sophisticated testing technology and easier methods of avoiding detection, should even be investigated now, and especially since the full timeline of the Armstrong case predates the creation of USADA. Argues former pro cyclist and current TV analyst John Eustice in one of the few major dissents on this matter:

“It’s a waste of time and money to prosecute seasoned pros – of any sport— for past doping offenses. It is already too late and the guys are damaged goods, having been initiated into doping culture at a young age. The only way to change the culture is to focus on developing, and most importantly, educating and closely monitoring young riders in clean, healthy athletic habits. As, ironically, we’ve successfully done in cycling over the past five years. It takes time, does not garner scintillating headlines, but is the only way.”

How far back should the backdating go? What parameters should USADA observe in probing doping? Why is public money being used to investigate individuals and organizations not accused of violating any federal, state or local laws?

Ford and other leading media observers are silent on those topics, suggesting that those who aren’t fully on board with them are walking around with blinders on. But this isn’t really the case; it’s not a matter of believing Armstrong anymore, but to fear where the War on Steroids is headed. The USADA has bagged its biggest catch without having to prove a single thing, which is something quite different than posting documents on a website and getting leading journalists to declare “case closed.”

The most appalling analysis I’ve read comes from Associated Press columnist John Leicester, who also fashions himself as a truth-teller in refuting diehard Armstrong fanatics:

“To worry about how the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency managed to bring down one of the biggest sports icons, whether U.S. taxpayer dollars should have been spent on schools rather than trawling through the past, and whether it even had the power to reduce such a giant to a speck, feels trivial in the bare light-bulb glare of USADA’s findings.

“The means, fair or foul, appear justified by the ends and by the hope — and it can be only hope at this point — that this is as low as any sport can sink and that cycling could maybe build a healthier future from here, if the cancer of doping is truly excised.”

Here’s the hot-white blind fanaticism of the anti-doping zealots, in two easy-to-digest paragraphs, laid totally bare. If USADA needs anyone to write its press releases in the future, here’s the man to do it.

This is a bristling, arrogant affront to more than Armstrong partisans, but also to anyone who values process, and its transparency, perhaps even more than the result. That’s not trivial at all.

Our culture has become so hysterical about doping in sports that scrutiny of those who have launched the War on Steroids is practically non-existent. Willfully so, as Leicester illustrates.

Anyone who does care about the sport of cycling and any other sport that comes under the province of USADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency or any other sports entity with the power to investigate, police and punish alleged dopers ought to care about the means by which this is done.

If more crackdowns on doping are to come — and the USADA now enjoys virtually unchallenged public goodwill and a free pass from the media — it’s imperative that the ends should never justify the means.

It’s the very principle that Armstrong is alleged to have flouted in the first place.

Isn’t anyone except a true believer uncomfortable that the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency that has brought Lance Armstrong to his knees gets a good bit of its funding through a grant from the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy?

Taxpayer money this is, yours and mine.

The agency that brought us the futile, deadly, incompetent “War on Drugs” is dispensing money to an organization that is doing the same on the sports front, and it finally bagged its biggest target.

I have many more questions, looking for answers.

Is this how we want to root out sports “cheats?” With the same zero tolerance approach, the same self-righteous pontificating and little to no transparency about its methods?

I have no strong feelings about Lance Armstrong. Nor did I for Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, baseball stars whom the federal government also tried to prosecute for steroids.

It was easy to convict them in the court of public opinion for being arrogant, unlikeable assholes. It’s another thing to have absolute proof of their actions. But as the Armstrong case showed, even that isn’t necessary.

If the USADA can get an athlete with the power, profile and public support of Armstrong to yield, and not have to concretely prove a thing, imagine what it can do to anyone else it investigates.

We have become so blindly driven in our crusade against “cheaters” that we have charged the USADA to prosecute, adjudicate and then strip athletes of championships all at once, the purview of individual sports governing bodies be damned.

Even allegations against Armstrong dating back to 1998, two years before the USADA was created, and long after the normal eight-year statute of limitations have run out, are fair game.

Can we not even have a discussion about we whether we as a society should be elevating steroid use by athletes essentially to that of a crime? Because that’s what our zeal demands.

Is this really anything close to an important issue in sports?

Where is the sports media indignation about the USADA that comes out with all barrels blazing for the NCAA and BCS?

Besides this columnist? And this one? And this one, to some degree?

Paging Joe Nocera.

Instead, we get this, from the Schoolmarm-in-Chief, embodying the endless, cloying moralizing about steroid use.

If we’re going to have an organization monitoring sports doping, especially one that spends taxpayer money, doesn’t it deserve the same scrutiny as old men in bad blazers?

Who’s going to monitor the monitors? Right now there appears to be no one.

Ross Tucker at The Science of Sport blog says there have been many villains in the world of sports science this year, but the ongoing, dragged-out doping case of 2010 Tour de France champion Alberto Contador is the clear and easy winner, and virtually everyone involved is to blame:

“As for what happens next, I’d bet strongly that Contador will be cleared. That’s partly because I have zero faith in the CAS and I have only revulsion for lawyers who play the system from inside. And those factors together, along with the mountain of technical information they have thrown at this, will, I strongly suspect, see the verdict go in favour of Contador. That will in turn have ramifications for anti-doping. For one thing, it will mean that they may as well take clenbuterol off the banned list, but it will also challenge the concept of strict liability. Whether it would create a legal precedent, I don’t know (the specific details of the case would determine this), but it certainly would leave a bad taste. It already has, thanks to the delays.”

The only other doping case before the Court of Arbitration for Sport that took longer was former American Tour champion Floyd Landis’ appeal of a positive testosterone test. At his hearing last month, Contador was in tears, pleading that the traces of the banned substance clenbuterol were due to eating contaminated meat.

And after that, he pedaled his way to an easy victory in Israel, as he has so many times before. He will learn in mid-January whether he joins Landis as the only other Tour winner to have his title stripped.

Of all the speculation over National League MVP Ryan Braun’s positive test for a banned substance — and which was disclosed anonymously to ESPN.com — only a handful of writers are raising the most important points. Maury Brown:

“If he lucks out and it’s found that due to some circumstance he should not be suspended, then the larger question is, how did the positive get leaked to ESPN? That’s a larger concern in the overall. If Braun does win on appeal, he will forever be guilty in the court of public opinion.”

And Jonah Keri:

“We don’t know if so-called performance-enhancing drugs actually enhance the performance of baseball players. And if they do, how, and by how much.

There’s a widespread belief among many baseball followers that PEDs bring gigantic benefits to those who take them. The most rigorous way to prove a theory is to conduct a proper double-blind randomized clinical trial. Give PEDs to 500 players, withhold them from 500 others, then track the results. That way you know who used and who didn’t use, and you strip out any possible placebo effect, where a player might gain confidence and possibly play better just by thinking that PEDs will help his performance.”

Those who claim that players using steroids must mean those substances work assume some kind of medical knowledge on the players’ part, because of an unproven belief that they actually enhance performance. Those who see the offensive boom of the early-’90s to mid-aughts as the product of PED use ignore a multitude of factors ranging from a diluted pool of pitchers caused by expansion to smaller ballparks to strike zones the size of postage stamps.”

Thank you gentlemen.

While this case is important on so many other fronts, most everything else is the noise of another maudlin morality play about “epic cheaters” or why Barry Bonds didn’t get the same level of public support. Or whether Braun should be stripped of his MVP award if he does end up serving a 50-game suspension. Or his declining fantasy value. Or his damaged “brand.”

Please. To some Braun will always be tainted, as Brown suggested, even if he wins his appeal against very long odds. WNBA star Diana Taurasi still is, even after she was vindicated due to a sloppy Turkish doping lab.

A high-profile star player in America’s “national pastime” who is only accused of violating MLB’s steroids policy — and we know this only because of an improper release of information to a powerful news organization — is having his motives questioned before his guilt or innocence is known. So much for the benefit of the doubt.