Armstrong Actually Less Likable After Oprah Interview

If Lance Armstrong thought his sitdown with Oprah Winfrey would be the start of an image rehabilitation, he was dead wrong. Some reactions to the first part of the interview, which aired last night:

• "If it was possible to like Lance Armstrong even less, his 90-minute interview ... went a long way to accomplishing that fact," declares Christine Brennan in USA Today. He was blithe, smug, and glib, even making a joke at one point, during what "should have been the most intense, emotional, gut-wrenching moment in his life." He just proved he's ruthless and cold-blooded—"you almost wonder if he's human."

• In the Telegraph, Brendan Gallagher concurs. Armstrong showed no real remorse, contrition, or emotion. He proved that "individual people and their lives just didn't matter to him. They still don't. The only person who matters is Lance Armstrong. This is a man beyond redemption."
• "Armstrong failed to do the one thing many people had been waiting for: He failed to apologize directly to all the people who believed in him, all the cancer survivors and cycling fans who thought his fairy-tale story was true," writes Juliet Macur in the New York Times. "Not once did he look into the camera and say, without qualification, 'I’m sorry.'"
• Twitter users seem to agree with all of the above, if the tweets rounded up by Mashable and the Atlantic Wire are any indication. Sample: "Armstrong should look up sociopath in the dictionary."

Click for more from the interview itself. (More Lance Armstrong stories.)