Floyd Landis, Marion Jones, Barry Bonds: We are the new East Germans

In just one year, three Americans have summarily sullied not just their names, but their sports, their country and the historic venues where their cheating took place.

With her admission of guilt to have taken the same steroids that Barry Bonds had, Marion Jones, five-time Olympic medalist has consequently branded the Olympics and the performances therein as highly suspect and always open to question. In other words, great performances will always be deemed untrustworthy! Also note, will her relay have to give back their medals or did they cheat too?

Disgraced rider, Floyd Landis after testing positive for synthetic testosterone has destroyed the 'house' that Lance Armstrong built. In July of 2007, Tour de France television ratings for this year's Le Tour on the Versus channel; (formerly the Outdoor Life Network), were FLAT or down 50% from the Lance Armstrong era. Instead of Floyd Landis growing the sport. He stopped it in its tracks.

Then there is baseball's Barry Bonds. One swimmer I know argued that everybody else in baseball is dirty so why does it matter? Well, it does matters because it is cheating and the performances are artificial and have little to do with humanity. Note: Barry Bonds' home-run ball at the Baseball Hall of Fame now has an asterik after it explaining the steroid controversy connected to it.

The East Germans doped for both fame and jingoistic reasons. But we Americans have refined that philosophy: These individuals are the new East Germans but their flag is the hundred-dollar bill, their political ideology is to lie, to cheat and then cry all the way to the bank.