A lot of chatter out there about the President's attempt to roll into Copenhagen and love the IOC into picking Chicago to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. Preceded by Michelle Obama's impassioned, highly personal (what else) presentation, The One did his best to back up Chicago's bid and came away empty-handed. I have a few thoughts on this whole thing.
1. Tony Blair went to the mat for London's 2012 bid, and it appears that there is now an expectation that heads of state will be a part of any bidding city's attempt at suasion. Had the President not gone--and Chicago lost--there'd be plenty of complaining about his absence.
2. There has also been a lot of talk about "loss of prestige", how the President "will suffer from this international embarrassment", etc. I'm prepared to believe that this will be the case, I just haven't seen anyone translate for me HOW this will happen. When the President loses a fight in Congress, it emboldens his political enemies and those friends whose affections are alienable. But the IOC isn't going to vote on any pending legislation. That the games will happen somewhere else is sad for some in Chicago, but it doesn't matter to all that many people anywhere else.
What do I see as the upshot of this? Over-reaction, of course. Any US city that has a serious shot at an Olympic bid in the future--irrespective of the party of the President--is going to have their effort "federalized". Because the President is going to (presumably) have to be involved (so that the IOC fat-cats can feel important), and because no White House wants THIS to happen again, preparations will begin for the presentation months in advance, the White House will effectively co-opt the local organizing committee. There may even be a White House Olympics Czar appointed, who knows?
Monday, October 5, 2009
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This whole story is less about Obama than it is about the press's reaction. The talking heads were confused and angry. It just did not register with them that Barrack and Michelle Obama, along with Oprah, could go to Denmark and be rejected.
I personally am thrilled that Chicago didn't get the Olympics. I think it is a corrupt partisan rathole run on a 19th. century machine political model that should have been dismantled forty years ago by the Justice Dept. And now a protege of that modern day Tammany Hall runs the federal government.
Let me put it this way, Mrs. O'Leary needs to get a new cow.
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