Lying as usual, Sen. Obama said...

...that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was a supporter of the "Bridge to Nowhere." As reported by ABC News, he said:

Obama also mocked the new TV ad put out by the McCain campaign claiming that Gov. Sarah Palin "stopped the Bridge to Nowhere."

"I gotta admit these folks are shameless," Obama said, "because the record is indisputable," he said, describing how Palin had originally supported the project.

"I wouldn’t do that," Obama said. "I mean, I'm not perfect --"

"Yes, you are!" shouted a woman in the crowd.

"No, no, no, no," Obama said. "Talk to Michelle, she’ll tell you. But what I'm not going to do, I'm not going to describe in an ad that I did something that is opposite of what I did."

The problem with Obama's pretended honesty is simply that the Alaska Democratic Party agreed with Palin's claim, or at least it agreed before Obama and his media spin doctors got them to remove their description of the events from the Web yesterday.

Here is the description, from the now-deleted "Retire Ted" page of the Democratic Party's campaign against Sen. Ted Stevens:

The Gravina Island Bridge initially received $223 million in 2005 via earmarks by Alaska Senators Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski. The bridge would have connected Ketchikan, Alaska with its local airport on nearby Gravina Island (population 50). Congress stripped the earmark after a national uproar about it but appropriated the money anyway for unspecified transportation uses. Former Gov. Frank Murkowski’s administration set aside about $113 million of the appropriation for the Ketchikan bridge. However, Gov. Sarah Palin said the $398 million bridge was $329 million short of full funding, and only $36 million in federal funds were set aside for it. She said it was clear Congress had little interest in spending any more money for it and that the state had higher priorities.

But guess who DID support the Bridge to Nowhere? That's right, the same Sen. Obama, in return for support for his earmarks.

Ugly business, politics. I'm sure I'll have to make the same posts about McCain.

Update: If Obama wanted to say something true, he could say that Gov. Palin didn't turn down the money, because she didn't. She just used it for another project. But I don't think truth is high on his list of priorities.

Cycling today

The big story today in the world of cycling once again involves the Astana Team.

And it isn't Alberto Contador or Levi Leipheimer.

While Leipheimer and Contador relinquished the lead of the 2008 Vuelta (by 11 seconds) to Egoi Martinez of Euskatel, which is not a negative because it gives Euskatel the burden of leading the peleton in chasing down breaks for the next three mostly-flat stages (and Martinez is no long-term threat), Astana was making headlines with Lance Armstrong.

Accordong to a rumor in VeloNews, Armstrong has agreed to return for five races next year, including the Tour de France. He is doing this for no salary or bonuses, and he will post all of his doping tests online.

To an extent, this appears to be an effort by Armstrong to show that he was clean during his Tour wins, which has been a subject of intense debate among the French, in particular. When former Armstrong teammates Roberto Heras, Tyler Hamilton, Floyd Landis and Manuel Beltran tested positive for doping after they left Johan Bruyneel's USPS/Discovery Channel team, a lot of aspersions were directed at Armstrong. This would be Armstrong's chance to show that he was clean all the time (or at least after 1999, which we'll discuss on another occasion) ... and now that Bruyneel runs Astana, Armstrong would have the best strategist in cycling on his side once again.

Since Astana will continue to have Contador and Leipheimer and probably Kloeden plus Armstrong, it should be able to be competitive in all three Grand Tours, which Bruyneel had already managed with USPS/Discovery Channel/Astana (winning 11 Grand Tours: 8 Tours, 2 Giros and 1 Vuelta (and counting)). The team has also added Dirk Demol, who was operations director of Discovery Channel when Bruyneel was director sportif there, for 2009 -- and the sponsorship from Astana has freed it from needing to bring young Americans up through the ranks of the team, since they have ended up on the U.S.-based teams Team Columbia or Team Garmin-Chipotle.

According to the VeloNews report, Armstrong's five races would be the Amgen Tour of California, which has become America's premier stage race, Paris-Nice, the Tour de Georgia, the Dauphine-Libere and the Tour de France. In particular, this announcement (if confirmed) is viewed as a huge boon for the Tour de Georgia, which is without a title sponsor and may collapse without a huge boost like this.

Oh, and the Trek bicycle sponsorship followed Bruyneel, Contador and Leipheimer to Astana, so Armstrong won't have any conflict there.

More to come....

Olbermann demoted for poor ratings

Are there more people on the extreme right or the extreme left? MSNBC found out the hard way.

MSNBC's far-left "commentator" Keith Olbermann, along with Chris Matthews, who had moved left to keep the former ESPN jock-sniffer company on the Obama "bandwagon", were sacked as the anchors of MSNBC's political coverage today.

The move was apparently in response to MSNBC's flop in the ratings books at the conventions, as MSNBC trailed both Fox and CNN by a country mile, drawing slightly more than a quarter of the viewing audience of its competitors during the Republican convention and not doing much better during the Democratic convention, while Fox News secured the top rating.

The poor chemistry between Olbermann and Matthews led Comedy Central's Jon Stewart to compare the coverage to Lindsay Lohan's fractious family ("Does MSNBC have to be the Lohans?"). Meanwhile, the far-left tilt hurt the reputation for neutrality that MSNBC's parent network, NBC, had long cultivated in its news operation -- and MSNBC's decision to give a new show to Air America talking head Rachel Maddow only emphasized the network's decision to embrace "partisan journalism."

Although Fox News pioneered "partisan journalism" on TV, its anchors such as Brit Hume and Chris Wallace have carefully nurtured a reputation for neutrality. Unfortunately, MSNBC decided to disregard this when embracing its shift to the radical left.

Sports is the playpen of journalism, and few former sports anchors have survived outside of it. Olbermann proved to be NBC's true "not ready for prime time player."

Leipheimer leading Vuelta again

In the 2008 Vuelta, where 6 of the top 7 are Spanish, the leader once again is Levi Leipheimer, the only American in the race. In second is Leipheimer's teammate Alberto Contador, who edged Leipheimer in the Tour de France a year ago and then won the Giro d'Italia earlier this year.

Could Leipheimer-Contador turn into another Hinault-LeMond (except without the petty jealousy)?

Canadian elections forthcoming

A lot of very left-wing Canadians of my acquaintance are heavily invested in the Barack Obama Celebrity Sweepstakes. However, it looks like Canadian PM Stephen Harper of the Conservative Party wants to take advantage of their absence. Harper needs to pick up 28 seats to have a Conservative majority in Commons, and t now, while Russia is making the peace-niks look like the glassy-eyed but silly idealists that they are, may be an opportune chance for him to gain those seats.

Good luck to him.

More on Mushroom

An e-mailer asks if I lost money when Mushroom Records collapsed -- if not, why do I still seem to have it in for Ann and Nancy Wilson after all these years?

The answer is that no, I wasn't an investor, but I care because of the way that their selfishness affected the Canadian group Chilliwack. Let me explain...

Heart was a struggling Seattle, Washington band that moved to Vancouver to make a record. Heart ended up recording at Can-Base Studios in Vancouver, where head engineer Mike Flicker produced their debut album, "Dreamboat Annie". Another group recording at Can-Base was Chilliwack, a Vancouver-based group that had been on the verge of success for years, having released seven prior albums, two as the Collectors and five as Chilliwack, on four different U.S. labels (WB 2, Parrot 1, A&M 2 and Sire 2). But this time, Chilliwack came up with a winner: "Dreams Dreams Dreams". Both albums were released by an upstart Vancouver label, Mushroom Records, which was also affiliated with Can-Base ... and Can-Base changed its name to Mushroom Studios.

"Dreamboat Annie" was a smash success. "Dreams Dreams Dreams" was a modest hit, although it produced four singles. A young record-store manager in Columbus, Ohio pushed the heck out of "Dreams, Dreams, Dreams", and we managed to make it into a solid hit in Columbus, although still spotty elsewhere in the US.

But then came the dark side of the music business. Heart wanted its royalties raised, now that it had had a major hit. Mushroom refused. Word of the problems got to CBS Records, which found out (to its surprise) that Flicker, despite his affiliation with Can-Base/Mushroom Studios, actually had no affiliation with Mushroom Records. So CBS hired him, although he was in the middle of recording Heart's second album, "Magazine."

Here's where things get murky. Ann Wilson claims, in his effort to keep Heart from breaching its contract, that the head of Mushroom Records (Shelly Siegel) started a "whisper campaign" that Ann and her sister Nancy were lesbian lovers. Unlikely as this seems, one thing that is certain is that Heart did indeed breach their contract and sign with Flicker and CBS -- where they got their much-higher royalty rate, leaving Mushroom, still a start-up label, completely in the lurch.

Ann and Nancy wrote the song "Barracuda" about Siegel, including the lyric (related to the supposed "whisper campaign"): "If the real thing don't do the trick, you better make up something quick."

In the flurry of lawsuits that followed, the courts ended up permitting Heart to ditch Mushroom in pursuit of more money, although Mushroom was permitted to release "Magazine" -- but only after Flicker and the Wilsons finished it to their hearts' content -- meaning that Mushroom had to scrap about a half-million copies of the album that it had finished and shipped. Mushroom then had to hire guards to prevent the Wilsons and their bandmates from erasing the master tapes during recording, which the Wilsons had threatened to do if they actually had to live up to their contract.

Meanwhile, Chilliwack recorded another great album, "Lights from the Valley", but it didn't do as well in the US, because Mushroom was spending all its promotion money in the court fights with Heart. Then Chilliwack started on "Road to Paradise", but it ended up coming out as "Breakdown in Paradise" because Mushroom head Siegel died of a stroke ... at age 32, in January 1979.

Capitol Records bought the rights to the two Heart albums on Mushroom during the bankruptcy of the label. But the Chilliwack records on Mushroom are unavailable to this day, and have been unavailable for almost 30 years. All because Heart lived up to the motto of the Democratic Party: "We want ours; screw you."

"Barracuda": Do the Wilson Sisters Have a Case?

The radical left is up in arms today because the Wilson sisters (Ann and Nancy), who were the leaders of the rock group Heart, are complaining that the McCain-Palin campaign used their 1978 hit song "Barracuda" without their permission.

Waaah! The poor coverage of the legal issue here by the mainstream media ("MSM") is another reason why the MSM is held in such disdain.

Basically, political campaigns buy a license from a performing-rights organization such as BMI or ASCAP for their campaigns, the same way that restaurants may buy such licenses to play music inside their premises. Such licenses entitle the campaign to use just about any song that it chooses as background music. As long as the campaign doesn't use the music in an adaptive use (for example, as backing to a commercial, as the McCain campaign earlier did with the Frankie Valli song "Can't Take My Eyes Off You"), the campaign is free to use any of the songs licensed through the performing-rights organization.

So, when Heart sends out a press release to say that they have issued a "cease-and-desist" letter to the McCain campaign, as they did on Thursday morning, all that means is that they have embarked on a PR offensive. They actually have no right to cause either campaign to cease and desist from playing their songs, whether it's "Barracuda" (Sarah Palin's nickname), "Magic Man" (Barack Obama's self-image), "Heartless" or "Dog and Butterfly," as long as the campaign has secured the appropriate license -- unless the campaign somehow represents that use of the song constitutes an endorsement by the artist (not likely).

When the McCain-Palin campaign ignored the request and used the song Thursday night when Sarah Palin came on stage, Ann and Nancy Wilson made a scene reported by the MSM. Nancy claimed that she felt "completely fvcked over." I wonder if she'll turn down her next royalty check or withdraw her songs from pulic performance as a result.

Naah, didn't think so.

Nancy is married to the Oscar-winning writer/director Cameron Crowe, whose own donation record (all to Democrats such as Hillary Clinton and Barbara Boxer) reveals his leftist political viewpoint. No surprise that she doesn't really care about other people's legal rights.

I should add that I met Ann and Nancy Wilson in 1976, when Heart had just released its first album on Mushroom Records. They seemed nice. But shortly thereafter, in 1978, they decided to screw Mushroom Records and jump to CBS, right in the middle of recording their second album -- and they got away with it when Mushroom, desperate to release the second album despite Heart's breach of contract, filled it with two live covers of Led Zeppelin songs that Mushroom had previously agreed never to release. I was shocked at the time that Heart would do something so sleazy ... but this phony "cease-and-desist" controversy is consistent with it, although 30 years later.

Conventions

Other than establishing that MSNBC's Keith Olbermann is so partisan that he makes Faux News look fair and balanced by comparison, I'm not sure if the rest of us learned anything from the conventions.

Basically, we had four days of Democrat propaganda followed by four days of Republican propaganda, with a brief break for Hurricane Gustav. The media's intent to use the Palin VP pick as the means of impugning McCain's judgment backfired after her speech on Wednesday night, because McCain looked brilliant for picking her, and the negative newspaper articles and talking heads had to switch to a different tack.

I've explained on another site the rationale behind the choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as Senator John McCain's vice presidential candidate, but I'll do it again here, so that it doesn;t get lost.

McCain faced severe problems with his VP pick. By picking Senator Joe Biden, Senator Barack Obama decided to make an attempt to shore up his foreign policy weakness. McCain's weakness was different. It seemed obvious that he wanted to pick a pro-choice VP candidate such as former Pa. governor Tom Ridge or Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. But, if he did so, he'd lose the support of the far right wing of the Republican Party -- and it was becoming clear that many far-right-wingers were taking the same view of McCain that far-left-wingers had taken of Hubert Humphrey in 1968: sit on their hands and hope he loses.

Yet the main candidates being touted on the right brought their own major weaknesses. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney had been pro-choice, pro-gay rights and anti-Reagan-Bush ... until he had an epiphany in 2004 that most voters in Republican primaries held different positions than he did ... at which time he jettisoned everything he had previously stated that he believed. Yeah, imagine claiming to be on the "Straight Talk Express" when your running mate never met a view that he believed in past the next election. A Romney VP slot was the kiss of death for McCain.

Unfotunately, Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty wasn't much better of a choice. He didn't bring as much baggage, but he's dull as dishwater as a speaker. And after all of Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal's near-misses in Louisiana, he needed more than the few months he's spent as governor to change his national image. Meanwhile, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee remained poison to McCain's core supporters, Republican moderates, who weren't going to accept a creationist on the ticket, no way, no how.

Which left Palin. Ideologivally, she is far to the right. But she can so speak well, which is how she beat a sittling governor in the primary and an ex-governor in the genaral election.

Vuelta 2008

Only one American is riding in the Vuelta this year -- Levi Leipheimer, fresh off his Olympic bronze medal in the road time trial. Leipheimer hasn't ridden in the Vuelta since his third place in 2001. Like many of the other former members of the Discovery Channel cycling team, he ended up moving with director sportif Johan Bruyneel to Astana, the Kazakh cycling team that was torn apart by doping last year.

And what did Leipheimer do yesterday? He won the individual time trial and took over the overall lead in the race. Astana chose not to defend the lead today, because the race heads into the Pyrenees on Saturday and everyone needs to be at their freshest, but he's just 10 seconds back.

Leipheimer's victory makes him just the 5th American to win a stage in the race, along with Guido Trenti (2001), David Zabriskie (2004), Tom Danielson (2006) and Jason McCartney (2007), and only the second American to wear the leader's maillot oro (after Floyd Landis (2004), who was the leader of the U.S. Postal Service team that won the Team Time Trial that year).

But Americans don't get to see the Vuelta, because Versus, which owns the U.S. rights, chooses not to show it. Amazing.

Name that party!

The crroked, perjuring mayor of Detroit, Kwama Kilpatrick, had to resign in a plea bargain that requires him to serve 120 days behind bars. Guess what party he's a member of!

The Detroit Free Press isn't going to tell you. The !NY Times at least includes it -- in the very last paragraph of its story, along with mitigating information that his opponents in Detroit City Council are also Democrats.

Must mean he's a Democrat, because the press can't wait to trumpet "Republican" in appropriate articles -- such as discussing the 17-year-old daughter of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, where the NY Post couldn't even get 10 words in without using "Republican" -- and the Post is supposed to lean to the right.

Over the next two months, you'll hear lots of Democrats whine that they are targeted unfairly as biased toward Democrats. Treat such whines the way that you would treat any other partisan BS.

I actually know a radical left-winger who complained to a sympathetic audience of lefties that the press was all Republican. When I challenged her to name more than a token Republican on any major paper, she named Thomas Friedman, the NY Times columnist that supported the start of the Iraq War -- but also supported Gore, Kerry and now Obama. When I challened this, her response was that he was so conservative that Democrats didn't want him.

So much for Democrat "inclusiveness."

Has Obama peaked? (Part 2)

Unfortunately, I never had a chance to come back and finish the "Has Obama peaked?" post. My basic theme was that Obama seemed visionary when he first came on the scene, but that was merely because he was a better actor than most politicians. When Hillary Clinton refused to just go away and cede the nomination to Obama, we learned that Obama was little more than a conventional politician -- and not a very accomplished one either. That's why he was repeatedly hammered in the primaries by Hillary -- but his big edge in the caucuses (the most conventional and undemocratic part of the primary process) won the nomination for him anyway. We'll come back to that theme soon...

Has Obama peaked?

Generally, my orientation is libertarian (although I have little in common with the Libertarian Party). I believe that government has two overriding roles to play: national defense and police protection of individual rights. I also believe that government needs to provide some measure of "safety net" to protect the worst-off in society, although I hate "cliff" benefits, even though they are the cheapest form of benefit, because I don't believe they provide individuals with enough incentive to improve their lives.

As a libertarian, I've tended to vote Republican since the Reagan realignment, although I voted Democratic in three straight Presidential elections (1988-1996) when the Republican candidate was either Bush 41 (who clearly didn't believe in libertarianism) or Dole (who was about as energetic as a sack of potatoes; it didn't come as any surprise that he needs Viagra in the bedroom).

However, for libertarians, the Bush 43 presidency -- especially its second term -- has been an unmitigated disaster. The libertarian view that people should be free to make their own social arrangements, extending even to child-bearing and marriage, has been hammered into the ground by Bush's commitment to terminating legal abortion and blocking gay marriage. The libertarian belief in minimal growth in federal government has been tossed aside in the rush to break spending records, to fund "bridges to nowhere" and to federalize local programs like education. Meanwhile, loose regulation of the economy was often replaced by no regulation, creating a perfect environment for frauds and con men, who seem to have been major instigators of the current mortgage crisis. And the secular libertarian approach to governing was replaced with a religious overview that was no less divisive for being sincere.

Basically, the Bushies wanted to regulate areas that libertarians would normally prefer to see left to individual choice and ignore areas where regulation is seen as necessary, leading Bush 43 to the well-deserved lowest approval ratings for a president since the advent of scientific polling. Even people like Dick Cheney, known to be a supporter of gay marriage, had to sublimate their views to the Bush-beating of individual rights. For Pete's sake, the U.S. engaged in torture. Torture! It may be an effective way to get information, but we Americans have always prided ourselves on the fact that, unlike some totalitarian regimes, torture was something that Americans didn't resort to. We can't say that any more.

In the run-up to the 2008 election, then, it was clear that from a libertarian perspective, the Bushies had to go. Unfortunately, most of the Republican candidates were proud of Bush's anti-libertarian acts and pledged to continue them, or even expand them. There were only a couple of Republicans who promised a break with the Bush lineage.

Against that backdrop, I had to look at the Democratic candidates seriously. The Democratic front-runner was Hillary Clinton, who does a passable imitation of the libertarian version of Satan without even trying. She basically supports a huge expansion of government. The other candidates, who looked like the Seven Dwarves compared to Snow White (Hillary), had little chance. But one of them stood out from the beginning.

Barack Obama (who now prefers to go by his Africanized first name instead of his European nickname of Barry) was the candidate of one of the "fringiest" of Democratic fringe groups, the leftist radicals that make up MoveOn.org. Ordinarily, no libertarian would consider any candidate endorsed by these big-government radicals. But Barack Obama was different from the beginning. He was extremely well-spoken, certainly the best speaker among the Presidential candidates since JFK and Reagan. Many of his speeches, like Bush 43's campaign speeches, were little more that platitudes about changing the way Washington does business -- which Bush 43 utterly failed at and quickly gave up.

A well-spoken presidential candidate is useless without something to say. If all Barack Obama had to say was to spout the tired radicalisms of the MoveOn crowd, his campaign might have succeeded among Democrats, but it would have had no appeal to someone like me. Instead, Obama came across as a serious and thoughtful candidate.

More cycling

The Vuelta a Espana -- the third and last Grand Tour of 2007 -- is taking place right now in Spain. How many Americans know or care?

Maybe that's why Team Discovery Channel, the most successful team in the history of US cycling, is breaking up for lack of a replacement sponsor at the end of this year. It's too bad, now that we've finally got three major one-week stage races in the US (Georgia, California, and now Missouri), that our top team in the States is exiting the sport -- but it is.

Basically, there have only been two successful US-based teams: 7-11/Motorola, which was the first US-based team to compete in the Tour de France and to win a Grand Tour (the Giro, behind Andy Hampsten), and USPS/Discovery Channel, which has had an unmatched record of Grand Tour success during the past 9 years -- 13 podiums, including 10 titles, with five different riders (Lance Armstrong (TdF winner 1999-2005), Alberto Contador (TdF winner 2007), Paolo Savoldelli (Giro winner 2005), Roberto Heras (Vuelta second 2002, winner 2003) and Levi Leipheimer (Vuelta third 2001, TdF third 2007)).

Discovery Channel brought a second-string team to the Vuelta, and the team immediately became weaker when American Tom Danielson, the winner of the 2005 Tour de Georgia and sixth last year in the Vuelta, crashed in the first stage and broke his collarbone. However, after the stage 8 time trial, the overall leader was Discovery's Stijn Devolder. He's fallen back as the race had two straight mountain stages, but it was still an impressive feat: another overall leader jersey for Discovery in its last Grand Tour, even without its top guns of Contador, Leipheimer, Popovych and Hincapie ... who are all competing in Missouri right now.

While the other two US races draw international fields, the only top-level teams in Missouri are Discovery Channel and Prodir-Saunier Duval. Not even the US-sponsored (but Europe-based) Team CSC is present in Missouri (boo CSC!!).

You have to wonder if Discovery Channel director sportif Johann Bruyneel still has hope of finding a US sponsor, considering the caliber of riders that the team brought to Missouri. Or maybe it's just his way of giving US cycling a big send-off. It's hard to see how US cycling recovers from the loss of USPS/Discovery Channel in the short term. Then again, US cycling DID recover from the loss of Motorola.

BTW, the Vuelta looks to be a battle between Rabobank's Denis Menchov (Russia) and Predictor-Lotto's Cadel Evans (Australia). But enough about Europe; let's focus on Missouri!

Meanwhile...

Enough cycling. Back later with some other topics.

Tour de France redux

Alberto Contador won the Tour de France. Contador was a 24-year-old Spaniard riding on the Discovery Channel team, and like two others before him (Laurent Fignon in 1983 and Jan Ullrich in 1997), he won both the maillot jeune (race winner) and maillot blanc (top rider under 25).

More interesting was how close the race was. Australian Cadel Evans finished 23 seconds back, becoming the first podium finisher EVER from Australia, and Contador's Discovery Channel teammate Levi Leipheimer finished another 8 seconds back in third. 31 seconds separating the top 3. Wow.

Leipheimer, America's hope, won the final time trial. He had been 59 seconds behind Predictor-Lotto's Cadel Evans and 2:49 behind Contador going into it and rode the best time trial of his life -- even better than the one that got him 3rd place overall in the last stage of the 2001 Vuelta, when he was previously riding for U.S. Postal (the team that became Discovery Channel). And, behind Contador, Leipheimer and Ukranian Yaroslav Popovich (8th overall), Discovery Channel also won the team award for the first time.

Interestingly, this was only the second time in the 94 runnings of the Tour de France that two native English speakers (Evans and Leipheimer) had placed on the podium. The first time was 1985, when American Greg Lemond finished second and Irishman Stephen Roche finished third.

Although Discovery Channel is the American team, there were only two Americans riding for it: Leipheimer and George Hincapie (24th overall). Other Americans in the race included Evans' teammate Chris Horner (15th overall) and Team CSC's Christian Vandervelde (25th overall), another former USPS rider. Only six Americans started the race this year -- three teams (Discovery Channel, Predictor-Lotto, and CSC) each had two. The two dropouts were CSC's David Zabriskie, a time trialist without enough strength in the mountains, and Predictor-Lotto's Fred Rodriguez, who developed stomach problems in the Pyrenees in stage 15.

Leipheimer becomes just the fifth American to finish on the podium in the TdF. The others were Greg Lemond (third, 1984; second, 1985; first, 1986, 1989-90), Bobby Julich (third, 1998), Lance Armstrong (first, 1999-2005), and (for now, at least) Floyd Landis (first, 2006, although he recorded a positive drug test during the race and his victory is contested).

American podium finishes in the other Grand Tours are even rarer. In the Giro, only three Americans have ever reached the podium: Lemond (third, 1985); Andy Hampsten (first, 1988; third, 1989) and the drug-suspended Tyler Hamilton (second, 2002). Interstingly, Hampsten (1986, 1992) and Hamilton (2003) are also the only two Americans to finish fourth in the TdF. In the Vuelta, the only US podium finish ever was Leipheimer's third in 2001.

Seven Americans have stood on a Grand Tour podium. That's all. Of course, no American even rode in a Grand Tour until Jock Boyer in 1981, so maybe that isn't so bad -- and, keep in mind that those seven Americans have a total of 20 podiums, even though only four of them (Lemond, Hampsten, Armstrong and Leipheimer) have more than one podium.

With Leipheimer's stage win, there are now 10 Americans who have won a stage at the TdF, beginnin with Lemond in 1985. In order, they are Lemond (1985-86, 1989(3)), Davis Phinney (1986-87), Jeff Pierce (1987), Hampsten (1992), Armstrong (1993, 1995, 1999(4), 2000-01(4)-02(4)-03(1+TTT)-04(5+TTT)-05(1+TTT)), Hamilton (2003), Zabriskie (2005), Hincapie (2005, plus TTT in 2003-05), Landis (2006, plus TTT in 2003-04), and Leipheimer (2007). TTT stands for the "Team Time Trial", where each member of the winning team that doesn't get dropped is credited with a win; the USPS/Discovery Channel team won it from 2003-05, with Armstrong, Hincapie and Landis ('03-'04) on board.

When you consider that three of the six Americans who rode in the TdF this year have actually won stages in it, it shows that the US may not be producing a lot of quantity in Grand Tour racing, but there is still a lot of quality. Maybe the addition of two U.S.-based one-week tours, the Tour de Georgia and the Tour of California (which were both won by Discovery Channel riders this year) to the annual racing season will help keep the quality level up....

2007 Tour de France

Good heavens. With the amount of bloviating going on over the Tour this year, you'd think the world was going to end if anyone who ever touched an illegal substance won the race.

As if TdF winners haven't been using illegal drugs back into the 1950s, from amphetamines to blood doping to steroids to EPO. The Tour winners have a lot in common with Barry Bonds: they were great riders to start out with, then they doped to get even better.

That's not to say that Michael Rasmussen doped. I don't know whether he did or not. All I know is that, in an era when people have Blackberrys, wireless Internet, cell phones, etc., it seems unbelievable to me that he wouldn't have kept in touch with the cycling doping agencies unless he wanted to hide out. And the only reason for wanting to hide out is to let the drugs pass through your system before you get tested.

Right now I'm thrilled to see that Discovery Channel has two of the top three riders in the race. We'll see how it goes at the time trial tomorrow.