It is not a phrase, I must admit, that has often tripped off my tongue, but I think Colin Moynihan has judged this one just about right.
It is hard to see the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) doing anything other than backing the World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA's) position when it passes judgement on the British Olympic Association (BOA) bylaw preventing drug cheats from representing Britain at the Olympic Games, probably early next year.
But, if he plays his cards right, win or lose, the BOA chairman should emerge from the episode as a champion of the populist cause of taking a hard line on doping offenders.
WADA, by contrast, if it is not very careful may have a tricky time explaining why a body with the words "anti-doping" in its very title, appears to be pressing for a 20-year-old sanction to be diluted.
That is where the PR battle is likely to be waged.
Actually though, while you might very well sympathise with the principles behind Moynihan's hard-line stance, I think the correct approach would be to work hard at convincing WADA, in effect, to adopt the BOA bylaw worldwide.
Either a standardised global approach to doping is worth having, or it isn't.
I share the BOA's hope that the world of sport will use this issue as a pretext for "an open and honest debate about the status and future of the anti-doping movement".
But I fear that by making the severity of sanctions the focal-point, more fundamental matters will be glossed over.
Let's start with the effectiveness of the anti-doping apparatus.
An adverse analytical finding is catastrophic for an athlete.
It can transform someone from national hero to international pariah virtually overnight.
And that would be true however severe (or lenient) the potential sanction.
Yet do we have the slightest idea of the proportion of drug cheats who are actually caught?
Or whether this proportion is rising or falling?
It is a tough thing to ascertain, for sure.
But unless we have some idea, how do we know that it is not just the incompetent drug cheats getting caught and vilified, leaving more accomplished dopers to bask in continued adoration?
Introducing severer sanctions would also, to my mind, make it imperative to make sure we are a) 100 per cent confident in the science and b) 100 per cent certain that there is not the faintest smidgen of official favouritism or corruption from the moment the testers knock on the door to exhaustion of an athlete's last avenue of appeal.
I am afraid I disagree totally with the notion that a smattering of innocent victims is a price worth paying in the drive to stamp out abuse.
It is all very well in theory, until that innocent victim is you.
And the logic of arguing that a two-year ban for doping is "almost saying it is acceptable" quite escapes me.
Moynihan also said this week that over 60 per cent of countries in the Olympic Movement have anti-doping policies that are non-compliant with the WADA code.
If that is even remotely correct, then bringing that figure sharply down should, to my mind, be much more of a priority than bickering over sanctions.
I repeat: the consequences of an adverse finding are so devastating - whether or not you are forced to sit out an Olympics - that the least top-level athletes have a right to expect is that they and their international peers receive equal treatment.
Once that is sorted out, then the matter of whether penalties need to be more severe can move centre-stage.
Source: www.insidethegames.biz