Lance Armstrong luring a selfie brigade to a ride is hardly a snapshot of how strong his following is. PHOTO/NZME.
IT seems some people can organise a grossly indecent piss-up in a brewery after all.
I mean if you're inebriated, what the heck does it matter who you've got riding a bicycle alongside you because you'll all toodle along to shoot the breeze after that at some local waterhole anyway.
It boggles the mind that the immigration department of the land can turn down an application for a visitor's visa over some technicality in a form but sees it fit to allow miscreants such as Lance Armstrong into the country.
Somehow his disillusioned "supporters" seem to be of the view that if Armstrong is painted as some sort of a pariah then he should be okay to come here to promote a beer TV commercial that espouses "The Consequence" of living one of the lowest forms of life.
Some of the sipper suckers in Auckland took their children for a 6am ride with Armstrong on Tuesday.
Would the same people take them to some school activity that early or groan about how unreasonable teachers or sport coaches can be.
Come on, are most of them truly supporters?
It's not that hard to lure drongos from selfie-dom these days for anything. All that shows is how desperate some people are "to be somebody" simply by association.
What is sadder is people in tights trying to project him as some sort of twisted contemporary Robin Hood who resorted to dishonesty for the good of the maligned and helpless.
It's bad enough that the 45-year-old American is a drug cheat but what rankles with those who are vehemently opposed to a man stripped of sevenTour de France titles coming here is the impact he has had on other people who have lost the meaning and quality of life.
Armstrong is undeniably a backyard bully who coerced people in the higher echelons of cycling to either go along with his unscrupulous practices or run the gauntlet to hell.
Oh please, spare me the dribble about how he needs to put food on the table for his family.
Banned from riding competitively again, Armstrong still reportedly owns multimillion-dollar properties in Aspen, Colorado, and Austin Texas.
Some of his former US Postal "Blue Train" teammates own and run bike-related businesses throughout the US and some are still cycling professionally.
What does it say about a country that is quick to point a finger at others for cheating but allows its own charlatans to carry on a lucrative lifestyle because somehow naming them and shaming them with the final act of stripping them of their titles is deemed sufficient punishment.
He lost his partner but then what woman in her right mind would still want to hang around with him.
What is criminal is the government allowing a brewery giant (I refuse to name it to give it free publicity, which is what it set out to do in the first place) to carry out such a puerile exercise.
If it really wanted to get better bang for its dollar then why not simply go for the "Lochte-ness Monster" - US Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte of the "Liar, Liar Speedo on Fire" fame who blamed the booze in Rio for "overly exaggerating" why he coerced three fellow athletes into accusing Rio police of making them pay at gunpoint.
If that's not palatable, why not try our homegrown booze boys who have curtailed their promising careers.
You see, the Kiwi brewery giant can do a TV commercial on "The Consequence" of consuming too much alcohol.
Maybe flying out Armstrong this time of the year was seen as a clever ploy to draw sympathy from a New Zealand public who is about to engage in a pagan ritual that champions virtues such as repentance and forgiveness.
The undisclosed sum of money that the brewery has paid to Armstrong could have been channelled to some worthy cause, such as cancer societies or Starship Hospital that, no doubt, Armstrong will strongly advocate because his LiveStrong campaign was an ideal red herring for his deceptiveness.
For all anyone knows, Armstrong could be akin to the accidental hero in the Robert De Niro character in the film, Taxi Driver.
The impact of alcohol on lives is endemic and, never mind throughout the year, take note of how many alcohol-related crime will be committed over the Christmas holiday alone.
In many respects, the brewery is no different to Armstrong considering the way it went about discreetly notifying its staff on why the disgraced cyclist was coming here.
Armstrong and Lochte come from a country whose new leader Donald Trump has made lying into an art form.
They aren't axe murderers but how edifying can it be to live among a colony of imposters?
Trump will do well to offer them portfolios in his ministry.