I highly doubt that Lance Armstrong will need to apply for demoralizing low-wage work to make ends meet. Dude could live quite handsomely off the value of his real estate holdings alone. But it’s a nice fantasy. The thing that really bothers me about Armstrong is not so much the doping, since pretty much everyone seems to have been doing that, but rather the way he made life hell for people who told the truth about him.
While doing this strip, I noticed that drawing Lance is oddly like drawing his fellow Texan George W. Bush.
For now, at least.
IIRC, Lance either sued or threatened to sue a variety of folks for defamation, when they raised claims which he has now admitted are true. I expect that those folks (who had to hire their own pricey lawyers and may have had other damages) won’t just let him lie quietly; nor should they.
I have seen, in passing on the TV news, fairly serious-minded legal types saying that his total liability could very well be in excess of all of his current assets. That’s why he’s trying so hard to get things to a point where he can earn some kind of living from his name or talent – because he could lose everything. I think the nice lawyer lady said that his contract with the US Postal Service, and other sponsors, had clauses that he promised to not dope, and that his admission to violating those clauses was extremely serious in terms of his being able to keep *anything*. (As in, he might owe them not only what they paid him personally in fees, but also what they paid to run the team – hundreds of millions of dollars, and far in excess of his entire net worth.)
People found out what Lance was up to. Lance then did his level best to destroy their lives to cover it up. I was an admirer of his. Once upon a time ….
Armstrong’s iron hand is what made the Armstrong brand so valuable. If he hadn’t been willing to destroy those who he so much as suspected of possibly going public in the future, we wouldn’t know who the hell he was and he and his sponsors and charitable organizations wouldn’t have made all that money.
Lance Armstrong is a hero who symbolizes the American Dream. Seriously.