I’ve never been all that conflicted about doping in sports.

This probably makes me an amoral, if not evil, American to some.

As I have watched Tour de France cyclists pedal high into the Alps over the years, I have thought to myself more than once: “If they’re not taking something, they’re crazy.”

Before there were anabolic steroids, riders downed all kinds of substances to gain a competitive boost, if not an advantage. Including strychnine.

But later this week, these historical realities will be drowned out by a new round of outrage that one of America’s greatest sporting heroes was a “cheater.”

As I write this, Lance Armstrong is taping his interview with Oprah Winfrey, supposedly confessing to doping months after America’s taxpayer-funded anti-doping agency dropped its load of documents, and as has he continued years of denials. Until now.

While the interview with the queen of America’s confessional culture won’t air until Thursday, there’s already plenty of media pontification that figures to go over the top later in the week.

Former Armstrong defender Buzz Bissinger “came clean” in his Monday column in The Daily Beast, alleging he was duped.

I also anticipate the interview will include plenty of “contrived contrition” — the speculation is Armstrong is doing this to earn U.S. Anti-Doping Agency reinstatement to compete in sanctioned Ironman competitions — but I’m not buying that Bissinger or anyone who feels betrayed by him was “played.”

As I have been blogging here for some time, so many cycling fans, Americans and yes, media representatives, have chosen to look the other way, failed to understand the history of the sport or exist in a state of denial about what’s been known in the cycling community for decades.

Bissinger, Rick Reilly and others played themselves, easily taken by a great American storyline: Ambitious young athlete battles cancer, wins seven Tour de France titles in a sport dominated by Europeans, serves as an inspiration to other cancer patients and young athletes, etc., etc.

The purity of this storyline, we now fret, was just too good to be true. That Armstrong is alleged to have bullied, threatened and intimidated others makes this fresh reality even uglier. It’s easy to complain about being lied to now.

But it is precisely because of our Puritanical culture — where the redemptive forum furnished by Oprah Winfrey culminates the spectacle of a desperate, fallen celebrity begging for another chance, if not forgiveness — that we have arrived at this point.

When Congress criminalized anabolic steroids in the wake of the Ben Johnson revelations and opened another wasteful front on the War on Drugs, demonizing the use of these substances became particularly necessary for those pushing for “clean” sports. But as I noted regarding the Baseball Hall of Fame voting last week, some of the giant figures of the game’s Golden Age were less-than-secret pill-poppers, a fact conveniently ignored by absolutists who couldn’t summon a vote for Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and others.

This stance of zero tolerance has increased over the past 20 or so years, as the Lords of Baseball have been shamed into enforcing anti-doping measures. Last week’s announcement about HGH testing came of their own accord. Whether this is a PR move or something more substantive is a topic for another post, as is the depth of the fever pitch over Armstrong’s doping.

The latter says something about our society beyond feeling “duped” by Armstrong. I suspect it’s our inability, or unwillingness, to have a healthy, adult conversation about steroids that isn’t as black-and-white as the anti-doping zealots, and their true believers in the press, want us to believe.

Now Armstrong is going to be the perpetual butt of jokes, and blamed for bringing down a sport he once helped give unprecedented stature. I don’t mean to be flip about any of this; he’s in a hell of a lot of serious legal and financial trouble (Dave Zirin rounds this up very well) from which he may never fully recover. It would be too easy to say that if we didn’t make steroids use to be such a reprehensible crime (which it isn’t even in its strict legal sense now) none of this would have happened. There would have been nothing to lie, or bully others, about.

But as long as influential journalists remain fully taken by tales of ethically pure athletes, driven only by the love of competition, the desire to extinguish the culture of “dirty” athletes and their dastardly deeds will never be quenched.

The most insufferable, self-righteous examplar of this, Irish journalist David Walsh, is milking Armstrong’s comedown especially hard. He’s been the media’s Elliott Ness figure all along, and gives himself much of the credit for what’s come to pass. Walsh (more on him tomorrow) and his editors couldn’t resist reprinting one of his triumphal it’s really all about me columns over the weekend, as he positions himself to profit — literally — from the media schadenfreude over Lance Armstrong that isn’t going away anytime soon.

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.

Bravo — no, bravissimo — to Elliott Turner for his excoriation of the sports governing bodies involved in disciplinary proceedings against Lance Armstrong (doping) and Chelsea soccer star John Terry (racial taunting of another player).

Turner’s withering discourse on The Classical gets to the heart of the problem of the “kangaroo courts” of sports. Bodies like the English Football Association and the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which are not bound by a high bar of legal proof, enjoy greater power against athletes, even those who have official charges against them dropped, as in the cases of Terry and Armstrong, or are otherwise exonerated.

Indeed, Turner argues, the worst part of this is the seeming inevitability that should the government fall short, sports entities will really bring down the hammer, heavier than a court of law ever could:

“Instead of creating a separate sphere of sport and law, this looks like a second bite at the apple. If the police mess up an investigation or a prosecutor blows a trial, then de facto double jeopardy awaits the accused athlete. He may not face a year in jail, but instead risks losing seven Tour de France titles, a lifetime of achievement, and his good name.”

This is a line of argument that, as I blogged about recently, rarely makes its way into the mainstream sports media. Especially sanctimonious is the cadre of American columnists who rail eternally against “cheating,” as if that were an offense worse than the suspension of due process for accused athletes.

Earlier this month a blog post on the Columbia Journalism Review website was devoted to how journalists covering the Armstrong case are better-versed in the scientific details of doping, and how they’re informing readers as a result.

Declan Fahy pointed out the difficulties faced by reporters as well as drug-testers in detecting banned substances. But he completely ignored the monopoly status agencies like USADA and WADA enjoy, and that are even becoming quasi-legal in the current climate of fanatical punishment, actual guilt or innocence be damned.

Fahy made only passing references to media discussions about the ethics of doping, and whether taking steroids should be banned at all. Then he plugged cyclist and former Armstrong confidant Tyler Hamilton’s new tell-all book, “The Secret Race,” as “a first-hand account of how systematic doping is conducted.”

Perhaps in a future post Fahy can examine the need for reporters to exhibit not just “scientific muscle” but also equal discernment of the extra-legal process that “convicts” athletes where courts of law do not. And what are the ethics of that?

Turner’s piece would serve as a very good example of some badly needed journalistic scrutiny of the anti-doping zealots. Because they’re getting more of a free ride than the “cheaters” ever did.

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.

From earlier this week, Patrick Hruby pens a smart piece on the need to take a deep breath over the hysteria over steroids in sports and address the issue like adults:

“What if we’re too ignorant to judge the severity of the performance-enhancing drug problem in sports?

“What if the madness makes us ignorant, and the single greatest side effect of our ongoing War on ‘Roids is that we don’t even know what we don’t know?”

Then again, with headlines like this, don’t hold your breath. Dick Pound’s successor, take it away:

“If, after that, we still find people who are cheating, they’ve got to sit back and say, ‘What do we do now?’ ”

Licking my chops about Victor Conte coming before the WADA moralists, but he sounds too humble here.