Feb 6, 2009
USA Swimming Must Apologize to Sometimes-Smoker Michael Phelps
American Olympian swimmer Michael Phelps, 23, has been inundated with criticism over the past week after a British tabloid published a photograph of him smoking marijuana from a bong at a college party. Hypocritical moralizing—including the ludicrous and legally specious suggestion that Phelps be formally prosecuted—began immediately. (There are exceptions.) Some of the worst of this moralizing, verging on blatant lying, came from USA Swimming, which yesterday suspended Phelps (but not for so long that he won’t be able to perform for them when they need him). The New York Times:
Michael Phelps inhales
USA Swimming publicly reprimanded Phelps, who won eight medals at the Beijing Games, temporarily withdrawing its financial support to him and barring him from competition through early May. Phelps receives a monthly stipend of $1,750 from the organization. The national and world championships will be held in the summer.
“We decided to send a strong message to Michael because he disappointed so many people, particularly the hundreds of thousands of USA Swimming member kids who look up to him as a role model and hero,” the organization said in a statement.
Not one of USA Swimming’s “member kids” is independently disappointed in anything. If anything, the majority of its “member kids” likely like Phelps more for his having been caught smoking pot—a distinction he shares with half of all Americans, including a number of wildly successful roll models. This should be obvious, even to USA Swimming, which, given its willingness to peddle disingenuous propaganda, is the only player in this situation with an indictable lack of integrity. It should apologize to Phelps, and to the politically nubile “member kids” it has exploited in an attempt to push baseless and antiquated social myopia on thinking people.
Phelps—exhibiting all the subtle wiles of the sportsman-politician we’ve made him—addresses the controversy below, taking care to apologize for making “bad decisions.” His only bad decision was allowing himself to be photographed taking a hit, thus opening himself to the sort of ignorant, draconian lunacy with which his routine, mundane indiscretion has been greeted. Next time, Michael—and the next time, and the next time, until the rest of the country grows up—do your smoking in a closet.