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Location: Nashville, Tennessee, United States

7/29/2003

Lance Armstrong and Iraq
Five-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong is a Texan, a friend of George W. Bush - and he opposed the Iraq war. As Washington Post sports writer Sally Jenkins - who co-authored Lance's autobiography - put it recently:

"They are friends and both are loyal sons of Texas and both are amicable, swaggering smart alecks, but Lance is deeply self-educated and his politics are different. For instance, he's in favor of choice and gun control. And he opposed the Iraq War."
Yet Lance is personal hero of mine and when the 2004 Tour de France begins I'll be watching it again on the Outdoor Life Network and rooting for Lance to win No. 6.

So here's a question: Why is Lance toasted as an American hero by people like me, and by Charles Johnson over at Little Green Footballs, but when the Dixie Chicks or various Hollywood celebrities make statements in opposition to the war, we treated them with derision? Why hasn't Lance Armstrong become a lightning rod for criticism for those who supported the war?

Answer: Because Lance doesn't treat his celebrity status, derived from being a fast and indefatigable bike rider, lead him to think he should be treated as an expert on foreign policy, or lead him to use his public stage to take cheap shots at the president. Did you know Lance was opposed to the war in Iraq? Probably not until right now.

Lance has said he told Bush of his opposition to the war: "He's a personal friend, but we've all got the right not to agree with our friends," Armstrong told Britain's Observer newspaper. Ironically, that paper tried to whip up anti-Armstrong/anti-American hostilities among the French before the Tour de France began, but the French seem now to have embraced Armstrong. You just know, too, that George W. Bush will invite Lance Armstrong to the White House in honor of his fifth straight Tour de France win.