CDZ What is the right punishment for that fool of a swimmer?

[320 Years of History]

The past week's sports headlines have been heavy with discussion about Ryan Lochte and two of his teammates on the US Olympic swim team. Mr. Lochte claimed to have been accosted by an armed individual; however, after investigating the matter, police discovered that Mr. Lochte lied about what transpired. Mr. Lochte has basically concurred with that finding.



Also, in an interview, Lochte stated:

Lochte: I think we were still in shock but we were trying to forget everything and we were still intoxicated. Not that I’m saying that alcohol is an excuse, it isn’t, especially the actions I took. But we were very intoxicated.

Q: You were on TV the next day.

Lochte: It was hours later, so I was still intoxicated.​

Excuse me? In shock from and trying to forget what exactly? In Lochte's words, they were trying to forget "everything." Well forgetting "everything" does include forgetting one's obligation to tell the truth. What "everything" could not include for Lochte was the experience of having been robbed at gunpoint in Rio because, that quite simply did not happen.

So what do I make of all that?

• As goes Lochte himself:
  • Lochte is not the brightest light in the candelabra. What reason, as a cause for fabricating the robbery story, is remotely valid or plausibly offered?
  • Lochte is not the brightest light in the candelabra. Who the hell, and before the whole world, that actually did more than merely literally attend school says something so redundant as "over exaggerated" and doesn't, realizing the silliness of that turn of phrase, doesn't immediately upon having uttered it, correct themselves so others don't and cannot in fairness hold it against them?
  • Lochte is not the brightest light in the candelabra. Exaggerating the story isn't the cause of the dilemma in which Lochte now finds himself. Inventing and sharing it at all is the problem. Thus we see that even in his feeble attempt at remorse, he doesn't even accurately identify the thing warranting his act of contrition.
  • Lochte is an American whose behavior illustrates why, when abroad, upstanding and intelligent Americans must work hard to show that regardless of what non-Americans have heard, not all of us are self-aggrandizing, churlish nitwit proles and palterers.
• As goes a punishment:
  • Were I a member of the USOC, I'd move to strip him of his medal. Were I able to conceive of a penalty other than that which also demonstrates palpably to him and to the world that the U.S. does not tolerate the kind of integrity lapse that Lochte displayed, then fine, he can keep the medal. It's just not acceptable that someone given the honor of being among the people representing the U.S. at an international event having the stature of the Olympics, and as punishment for bringing shame on a nation whose people (not the government) are generally seen as self-serving to the point of having no regard for anyone else, suffer nothing more than chastening concomitant with a slap on the hand and bad publicity. The message sent by whatever be Lochte's punishment must speak not only to Americans, but also to peoples of the world.

 

[defcon4]

"What is the right punishment for that fool of a swimmer?"
Nothing. They had a good time, got wasted to wind down after the tension and stress. He probably doesn't remember half of it what happened. He perceived the security guy as a bum or store clerk or something since they wore those weird shirts as the store clerks did according to the video. They demanded money for some alleged damage in the bathroom, he thought they were shaken down. All in all nothing punishment wise. They messed it up a bit but didn't we all one time or the other?

IOW, "He was drunk, so it doesn't count." The excuse for every DUI fatality ever.

I did not say it did not count. I said let it go. No harm done.