Armstrong Debacle a Lesson for USPS. Or Not.

There had better be some lesson America can learn from Lance Armstrong's fall—"or we'll have wasted one heck of a lot of time talking about this guy," writes Gail Collins in the New York Times. Minus his dope-fueled accomplishments, "there's not much point to Lance Armstrong, Famous Person. He has no other talents," and he once dumped Sheryl Crow over her "biological clock." So let's focus on something else: The US Postal Service, which blew roughly $40 million sponsoring Armstrong's team.

The Post Office rationalized that a connection with Lance would make people "feel a little better about the Postal Service." So are we all supposed to feel worse about it now? Maybe this should teach us that federal agencies shouldn't sponsor sports teams. Maybe if we pass a bipartisan ban on such things, Collins muses, "the Lance Armstrong debacle would have a point!" Sadly, a bill banning federal Nascar sponsorships was defeated overwhelmingly in 2011. Ah well. "We'll look for another moral. Maybe something about Sheryl Crow." Click for Collins' full column. (More US Postal Service stories.)