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Do what you think is right. Sensible enough, right? Look at a situation, spend however long you need weighing the evidence available, then make a call.
What do you do when everything is so grey you can't figure out what you think is right?
Welcome to 2013 y'all. Lance Armstrong is going to be on the TV tonight admitting some stuff and probably crying or at least getting really emotional. I'm supposed to watch and decide whether or not I think he's still full of crap.
Thanks, I'll take a pass. Armstrong inspired millions of people stricken with cancer. Surely there are people who beat it who believe that the inspiration he provided played some role in their recovery and others who battled longer and harder because of him. That's some seriously good karma.
Problem, Armstrong cheated his way to to the spot that provided him with the opportunity to provide that inspiration and made himself famous and rich in the process. Not only did Armstrong cheat and lie about it. He attacked anyone who challenged his accomplishments.
Not so much with the good karma there champ.
So if you believed in Armstrong, you had a cancer survivor cleanly dominating a sport riddled with doping. It's not hard to find the inspiration in that. Problem is you've been had. The platform on which his inspiration is built is a sham.
Does that mean he didn't inspire people? Certainly not. Did the money he helped raise not go to a good cause? Again, of course not.
He just cheated and lied his way to fame and fortune and then used his fame and fortune to help people with cancer.
Great. Hose me off.
As for Manti Te'o, I think some of our skepticism lies in the fact that we are in the middle of trying to figure out what to do with Lance Armstrong. If Te'o really is the honest trusting person Notre Dame is portraying him to be, well then you're going to feel completely gross doubting him.
Problem is if you don't doubt him you run the risk of being as big a sap as you were for ever believing a cancer survivor was dominating the filthy sport of cycling while not cheating himself.
Parts of Te'o's story are believable to me. Not every big time athlete is a going to take the opportunity to get with any Co Ed in the off campus bar he can. A young man devout in his faith could eschew all that his big man on campus status affords him. Maybe Te'o is really shy and on online relationship was all he could handle. Maybe an elaborate scheme tripped him up, provided he never actually met this person.
Getting some clarity on that is still the biggest stumbling block to buying the story Notre Dame and Te'o are selling.
The other side of it is that he and his friends figured out a way to turn Te'o into a football hero straight out of central casting by faking all of this misery and the entire thing blew up in his face.
Again, fetch me the hose. Better yet, help me figure out where to stand because there is all kinds of crap raining down from the sky and I think we'd all do well to stay as clean as possible.