If anybody is tempted to defend Lance--and in the past, I've done a little of that--they should remember just how many people he has, in his own (twisted) self-defense, slandered as liars, using lawyers to drive the point home.
That's what pisses me off. I get that everybody, or almost everybody, was doping back then. But a fair number of them got caught, and most of the Americans have no come clean. Lance, though, has lied repeatedly about those who were telling the truth about him--and themselves. He's slandered his fellow athletes, he's slandered team doctors. This may have been, from his perspective, his only available play. But it's a lousy play, and in the long run, I think, it's what will haunt him most.