I'm a bit confused by this whole thing. I know, I know, there are folks who will think me an incredible naïf for still harbouring any doubts whatsoever about the guilt of Lance Armstrong. But hear me out.
First, the reasons to think he's guilty. There are apparently blood samples that have been tested with methods not available 10+ years ago that show evidence of blood doping. I'm not nearly enough of a scientist to understand this and I can't find (with a semi-cursory interweb search) any neutral news site to lay it out for me in enough detail for me to understand what's the deal with this part of things. But, I'll assume that at least the evidence is ambiguous, it could mean he's a doper.
A bunch of his teammates are reputedly willing to sell him down the river. I guess they'd know, but some of the ones who are already on record (Landis and Hamilton) are guys who got caught in a more definitive way and the notion of dishonestly selling out someone to mitigate your own punishment is not a new concept. However, they're now saying that maybe George Hincapie is become Brutus to Armstrong's Caesar. It would be damning indeed.
Finally, Armstrong's last statement contains words awfully similar to the weaselly defence that "if you couldn't catch me then, you can't punish me now". While this may be a sound legal argument in some circumstances, statutes of limitations being what they are, it's not exactly the most upright moral stance.
On the other hand, there is a lot to be said about the weakness of relying solely on circumstantial evidence. Sure, there's the blood evidence, but if I lean the other way (since I can't evaluate it properly) we can discount it as being tainted, too old, mishandled, whatever. The other folks who haven't been definitively caught haven't actually testified against him formally or informally and those that have... well, let's just say that "sour grapes" isn't too far from the mind when listening to them.
His arguments, such as they are, are true as far as they go. He never did test positive, he took all the tests they made him take, and if they don't like something about what he did then, now, something should have been done then, not now. I'm not obliged to go to the police station every time I notice I've inadvertently gone over the speed limit. I doubt Armstrong is similarly required to ban himself if someone inappropriately administers a test to him. Not every sport is golf.
Finally, there are enough cases where prosecutors get a bit drunk on their own power and pursue the innocent because they can't go back and look at things and admit they were wrong. I've seen Armstrong compared to Moby Dick and that right there should give those seeking to remove his titles pause. Doesn't mean they're wrong, but if you're that invested you might not be able to step back and look at it objectively. In the US legal system, it is far from unheard of for an innocent to decide it's just not worth the time and effort and money to fight for their name to be fully cleared and will plead to a charge for time served or probation. Again, is that what's happening here? Maybe not, but possible, I suppose.
Okay, okay, so, on balance, I guess I think he probably doped. But, really, what are you going to do about it now? Reach back and try and write him out of the history books? I guess I can see removing his name from things, but let's surmise he'd been caught in, say, 2001. If you're going to give the title to the second place rider, that's Jan Ullrich. He got caught doping himself, do you really want to strip one doping rider just to give a title to another one? And in 2002 the second place rider was Joseba Beloki. But if Lance was banned that year, so much would have changed that it's impossible to say that Beloki would certainly have won in Lance's absence.
It seems that you'd have to do more what was done with Joe Paterno, strip him of recognition for wins, but you can't go giving them to someone else without causing too many problems and headaches. You'd just have 7 consecutive Tours with no winner. And maybe that's the best solution.
Last problem for me, why is he being banned from completely unrelated events now? He can't run the Chicago marathon? Okay, so it's an officially sanctioned race by USA Track & Field. Can't you let him run with the other 44,999 people and just not consider his time official for record-keeping purposes? I dunno. I can't see being happy about this outcome from any point of view.
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