It appears from this article in the Times that the FBI has its sights set on Lance Armstrong, and will not stop until they get him, no matter how much it costs the taxpayers and no matter how trivial the offense. I hold no brief for Armstrong, but there is something unseemly about the top law enforcement agency in the country targeting an individual and, Ken Starr-like, relentlessly investigating until they find something to charge him with. Even Javert confined himself to chasing a guy who had already been convicted.
I’d feel a bit better about this if they were as implacable about going after the criminals that cause real harm. We all know in our guts (the same place the FBI knows about Armstrong, judging by the indication that they’re trying to gin up a witness tampering charge) that the bankers and the hedge fund guys were engaging in criminal acts—hyper-organized crime if you will. Putting Armstrong away won’t accomplish much, but I’m sure that if a couple of the big boys, rather than the peripheral players, went to jail, we might see a bit better behavior from the plutocrats. We might even avoid the next recession. A little implacability in pursuit of those criminals would be appreciated.
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