By this point, the initial flurry of reaction over Floyd Landis’ allegations has died down and a few general memes are already in place. But is the conventional wisdom all that wise? A look:

The meme: He lied then, so he’s lying now.

Let’s take this in two parts. First, Landis’ initial and longtime stance that he never doped and his admission that he did in fact dope to win the 2006 Tour de France. (Aside: Landis maintains he didn’t take testosterone at or before the Tour that year, but does admit to taking Human Growth Hormone.)

We can’t have this both ways — either he was lying then OR he’s lying now. And since there was little benefit to Landis finally admitting his past deeds, I think the record is pretty clear that on this count at least, he’s telling the truth now.

With respect to the other allegations, I think at this point we have to remain at “Time will tell.” Yes, Landis lied at his arbitration hearing and his words now should be taken carefully and thoroughly investigated.

But that he lied for years does not necessarily preclude him from telling the truth now, and to make that argument the primary means for discounting his allegations now is a convenient tautology.

Intelligence has been described as the ability to hold two seemingly contradictory thoughts in your head at the same time. Floyd Landis lied for years — as recently as February, on Larry King. He conned earnest supporters out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. And all of that may now mean precisely squat.

The meme: Landis timed his announcement for maximum effect
Not true by everything I know. The Wall Street Journal published its account based on an e-mail or e-mails that it obtained from an anonymous source or sources who had seen them. Landis says he did not leak the e-mails, and given the chain of communication published last Friday by Lance Armstrong that showed, in part, how many people knew about Floyd’s accusations before they were made public, it’s entirely plausible that the leak came from somewhere else.

Timeline The Lance Armstrong story Timeline of major events in cyclist's career. NBCSports.com

So far, we know that the following people had access to the information: Landis and those in his camp; USADA and USA Cycling; and Andrew Messick at AEG, who may have at least alerted his race’s title sponsor what was going on given how close it strikes to their primary business.

That’s a lot of people. Since the leak, Landis has spoken with exactly two journalists: ESPN’s Bonnie Ford, who had a lengthy interview in which Landis acknowledged the veracity of the e-mails and that he had authored them; and an interview with Neil Browne, in which Landis claimed he had named riders partly to try to negotiate some degree of amnesty on their behalf. (Set aside for now whether this is true.) That’s a fair bit of restraint if we want to believe he planned all this.

As well, Landis showed up at Saturday’s time trial stage, but did not make any statements or take any questions from reporters. If Landis was gunning for media exposure, the LA TT stage would have been an opportune time, given the reports of a pack of media outside his sponsor’s tent there. Instead, he remained silent.

The meme: Floyd has no proof/it’s all circumstantial evidence
As of now, we do not know if Floyd has anything other than his word on which to go — does he have diaries, photographs, actual doping paraphernalia, communication from team officials, etc.? We don’t know.

But the assertion that Floyd’s accusations alone are circumstantial is not true. In the United States judicial system (both civil and criminal) and within the framework of a WADA-approved anti-doping hearing, an eyewitness account is considered direct evidence, not circumstantial, hearsay or any other form.

With the exception of the alleged payoff for a positive test by Armstrong in the 2001 Tour de Suisse (which was before Landis joined the Postal team, in 2002), Floyd is not saying he heard about these things or was told by someone about them; he’s saying he saw them directly and participated in them directly. That’s direct evidence.

Whether it’s to be believed or not is a question for USADA and perhaps federal investigators to sort out.