Lance Armstrong: It's Time for Armstrong to Come Clean

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Lance Armstrong Receives Another Strike Against Him

I'll admit it, I've been duped before.

Now I really don't count Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, even Sammy Sosa: their steroids tales were pretty obvious.

But I didn't see Raffy Palmiero, Roger Clemens, Manny Ramirez, even A-Rod.

After all those would-be future Hall of Famers were "caught," we can naturally be skeptical about any sports hero. And Lance Armstrong would certainly qualify.

I wanted to believe that he's done everything legitimately: partly because it's such a great story, partly because I don't want to doubt a cancer victim.

But there just seems to be too much evidence against him. You can ignore "rumors" and "innuendo" but when people continually say openly that he took PEDs and all of France seems to want to bring him down, it's hard to look at it like a witch hunt.

So, assuming it's true that he did abuse PEDs and wasn't "clean," the best thing Armstrong can do is come clean.

We've been pretty forgiving towards the athletes who admitted steroid use: Andy Pettitte, Alex Rodriguez, Jason Giambi (who sort of came clean), even Mark McGwire. And we still bash those who deny deny deny: Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds are the poster boys.

Now if Lance did admit to it, he'd lose just about all his credibility and become a pariah for a while. People would declare him a phony and plenty would crush him for giving cancer patients false hope.

But as long as he apologized and admitted to it and "told his side of the story" I think he would ultimately be forgiven: maybe a year from now, maybe 10.

That won't happen if he doesn't come clean however.

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