After the Michael Phelps bong-hit photo emerged Saturday night, the instant reaction seemed to be: “Who cares? He’s 23-year-old.” Phelps’ hasn’t lost any of his major sponsors, and the story is fading away. Nobody seems to worked up about - as Mike Freeman called him - “The Baltimore Buddha.”

Should they be? Interesting column in the Florida Sun-Sentinel today by David Hyde: Michael Vick, Ricky Williams and Michael Irvin were all crucified when they were busted for marijuana.

(To be fair, Phelps wasn’t busted so much as he was photographed; Vick foolishly attempted to bring weed onto an airplane.)

Why isn’t Phelps getting the same treatment as some of the other athletes? His hometown paper (the Baltimore Sun, which isn’t exactly a tiny rag) is reacting to the story as if it were no big deal. “In the sports world, partying is not a hanging offense. And anyone who misguidedly thinks marijuana is more harmful than steroids is smoking something much stronger.”

Not surprisingly, it’s becoming a black and white issue. Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post gave Phelps another get out of jail free card (who can forget the DUI?); her colleague Mike Wilbon was not happy about it.

I’m annoyed over reading my friend Sally Jenkins’s column justifying that Phelps “periodically needs to bust out of the confines of the pool and of his too-coy image,” because he already busted out in 2004, when he was caught drinking and driving.

We don’t want to go down that “what if” road … but can you imagine the reaction if this were, say, Greg Oden?