Lance Armstrong... greatest doper there was or ever will be

But to joke about armstrong and cancer if rather different. He is target for jokes at his expense because of his behaviour. He is a target for sick, cancer-related jokes because he has traded on his cancer and even used it to help cover up deeply disgusting behaviour which would probably have lead to many of us wishing death on him if he'd done those things to our loved ones.

I'm trying to think of a decent comparison. Joking that people who have been on the dole for 10 years are all lazy scroungers is IMHO completely unacceptable. But to make the same joke about an individual who boasts about the the size of their TV whilst saying that the government are a soft touch and showing off that he hasn't worked for 10 years (because working is for mugs) is entirely different.

I agree. His stance all along has been to hide behind his cancer, even using it to explain his sudden transformation from explosive one day rider into stage race rider, and even hinting that any EPO positives might have been due to chemo on occasion.