boss wrote:
One of the weird things that I've never understood is how Lance has labelled dopers or ex-dopers as liars, and followed that up with 'you can't trust him because he is a liar'. The way he dealt with Floyd Landis was a perfect example - Floyd lied for money (in a book about not doping), and then after the dust settled, Floyd cleared his conscience and stated he did dope (for no personal gain). It's a really odd train of logic, and I don't know why anyone in their right mind would believe it.
They successfully sued this story into the ground in mid 2000s, so they've always believed in attack as right strategy, and its both in Lances and his lawyers nature. They couldn't easily sue Landis because he was making his statements in America, and the libel laws are difficult to work with, so they used character assassination. Its fine anyway because what they want to do is make prosecutors uneasy about Landis as a witness, and distract the Livestrong faithful from the Lance is a cheat story to the safe and easily proven Landis is a liar story.
They could sue in the UK, and they sued the Sunday times into a settlement for running the story, but that is backfiring on them now, as the Sunday times has filed to reopen the case for return of the damage, interest and costs. One imagines it fell apart as a strategy because even Lance can't character assassinate George Hincappie, and Hincappie is reliable proof that cheats could beat the tests, and that Lances team had those cheats.
Wouldn't be suprised to find that this leak is all fundamentally distraction to PR manage the fallout of that suit (ie this strategy appears to be a response to further public bad news).