KEY POINTS:
Michael Phelps will escape unpunished and unscathed from his latest misdemeanour with recreational drugs. Even the International Olympic Committee, that supposed paragon of the anti-drug crusaders, has accepted his apology and says he's ready to resume as a role model, whatever one of those is.
The liberal press
in US and Britain, like the Washington Post and the Guardian, dismissed his dope-smoking as just a youthful prank, something completely normal for a 23-year-old, especially one who's on an extended break from training following unprecedented success at the Olympic Games.
No action will be taken against him by world swimming body FINA. The World Anti Doping Agency doesn't impose bans for cannabis consumed out of competition - not that Phelps was tested anyway - and as yet no sponsors have cancelled the contract they have with him.
So this means it's okay for the most prolific Olympic champion of all time to smoke dope. Is that good for the Olympics? Good for sport? Good for humanity?
Despite Phelps' statement of apology, don't we see a pattern here? After the Athens games in 2004, he was prosecuted for drunk driving. He was apologising back then too... never again, a bad mistake, and so it goes.
Being Michael Phelps is not easy. He has attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, which means he will focus intently on one activity for long periods of time but be easily distracted when there is no particular ambition to achieve.
Thus, when he'd completed that quite phenomenal gold medal haul in Beijing, the next few months were time out.
Just as he can train and compete at levels never before reached in freestyle and butterfly, he often reaches Olympic standards in partying too. Everybody's entitled to a good time, although any sort of regular cannabis smoking can only be harmful for the lungs, let alone the brain. I would have thought any half-intelligent athlete might think of those consequences.
And when you're one of the world's more recognisable sporting faces, and the world is awash with mobile photographic and transmitting devices, you just have to be clever about what you do, and where you do it.
He was probably lucky that London's News of the World ran the story the same day as the Superbowl. There wasn't much time or space for the story to get legs in America last Sunday or Monday.
What gets me most is the hypocrisy of the whole thing. We know sport sold its soul to money long ago. But the IOC, who always espouse the ideals of competition and sport as a means to a healthy lifestyle, have not criticised Phelps.
All their statement said was that they had no reason to doubt the sincerity of his apology and that he was "a great Olympic champion". Dear God.
Yesterday, USA Swimming suspended Phelps from competition for three months and cut off their financial support in that time. Kelloggs also said it would not renew its contract with him.
