Stay on target

Floyd is starting to mount a counter-offensive in the media today, with appearances on quite a number of outlets. Much of what he is saying is sensible, but I fear is getting dragged into side issues that will not help the two major issues

• Understanding what really happened
• Clearing his name and showing his character.
  

There are some red herrings in the discussion that ought to have canned answers, with focus directed back to the real issues.

1. Did it make sense to go on a one-day doping plan? No, it didn't. A real question is whether Floyd was on a long-term doping program that went out of balance on that day to cause a T/E ratio failure. This will need to be addressed as part of understanding what really happened.
2. Unfairness about the handling of the protocol. Boo Hoo. It's not fair, and complaining gets the athlete nowhere in the process. Floyd was doing better with his no-excuses "I don't expect any sympathy". He needs to beat them even with the unfairness. Even if anyone did care about the fairness, winning an argument based on process rather than the facts of the testing will fail the goal of clearing his name.
   
3. Secret Agendas. Yup, somebody is out to get him, but whinging about motivations and methods is pointless until there are counter-facts that address what happened with the chemical results.

The burden of proof is now on Floyd -- he needs to prove that there is something legal that accounts for the results. Everything he knows about process from a lifetime of exposure to the US legal system is irrelevant. He's now presumed guilty by the factual evidence unless he can demonstrably show the evidence is incorrect or misinterpreted. CSI makes the claim that "the evidence doesn't lie." The evidence now says, prima-facie, that he's guilty. That evidence must be shown to be false by alternative evidence demonstrating misinterpretation.

What will help?

Go take a look at groklaw for how an open examination of case and process can be done. Someone collects and publishes all the available documents, and allows commentary. Even when the commentary is biased, the collection of documents shows what is going on. It is also a way of getting the procedural complaints out in the open without taking up air time to whine about them. One posts the released statements with links to what the process should have been, and the conclusions are obvious in the commentary.

If anyone near Floyd is reading, encourage him to post all the documents he's gotten, with no editing or redactions except for names and phone numbers that wouldn't be fair to reveal. The bad guys have all this information already. You might as well let people who'd like to help see what your are up against.