Rio beats out Chicago for the 2016 Olympics, in the first round of voting, no less – despite the hands-on, closeup and personal fly-by from President Barack Obama himself. This is the best shocker to hit the White House since Obama took office.
Why? A Drudge Report headline sums it up: “The Ego Has Landed.”
So much for Obama’s starry-eyed assumption that by flashing a smile and reaching out his hand, he can prevail in the global arena. It’s a world of often-competing interests, some far more horrendous than the prospect of the Olympics going to Rio. Iran is right now taking America and U.S. allies for an enriched-uranium ride, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez has been making common cause in America’s backyard with the likes of both Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi (Here’s my Forbes.com column this week, on “Despots are happy to cooperate – with each other”), and Russia and China are getting a lot of big, bad ideas about how far they can push their own undemocratic agendas without the U.S. pushing back.
To whatever extent this Olympic decision in Copenhagen brings Obama’s thinking down to earth, and grounds much bigger matters of foreign policy in the realities of world politics, this is an Olympic win for the United States.
Claudia: do you honestly think this radical President is capable of change? When he’s forced, as in the campaign, he will cleverly POSE as a moderate, (judge him by the people he surrounds himself with, you know: Volcker, Luger, Buffett) until the lights are turned off and then out come the cockroaches again. He wittingly suppresses his deep affiliations with radicals communists seditionists traitors and scum like Wright, Khalidy, Ayers, but procedes to appoint radicals communists seditionists traitors and anti-American scum like Holder, Van Jones, Jarrett, etc.
I’m really stunned at the lattitude those on the right still promote to lend Obama credit and refuse to hold him accountable for his continuing radical association, international blunders, divisive rhetoric and overall duplicity. He is clearly an entrenched conniving radical.
Obama will turn the loss to his advantage. I predict he will accuse critics of his Olympic efforts of wanting him to fail; of wanting the USA to fail. He will say, “I tried… I care about America and about Chicago.” He will be very alluring. His loss will become an attack trope against those that oppose him on any issue. He will make up an opposition and then attack the straw man. Typical stuff for Obama
Rush Limbaugh summed it up perfect; which I paraphrase here: “Obama was bitch slapped in front of the whole world.”
Almost three years of listening to the sickening main stream media and Obama babbling; the god that never shuts up!!
Absolute, sheer, intense, full-filling, total delight and pleasure is just the tip of the iceberg for the way I felt upon hearing the news.
Obama got a very mild taste of what he deserves. And you can take it to the bank that there is going to be one hell of a lot more of the same thing coming.
I don’t think obama will learn anything from this. if he was capable he would not have gone on this junket.
Obama will have learned nothing from this experience. So it’s only wishful thinking that “The Ego Has Landed.”. He’ll be back home and forging ahead with “reform” without missing a beat, and listening to no one that doesn’t agree with his own preconceptions.
who is all wee-wee’d up now !
did he really think the IOC would have the olympics in a racist country that tortures terrorists
IMO, the sooner all this gloating is over, the better. Then – maybe – Americans can begin to think about what the failure of the U.S. Olympic proposal might mean. We would be wise to think at a deeper level than gloating or political taunting.
I think this Olympic failure reflects the growing number of governments around the world that hold the U.S. in contempt. And why not? Our own elected leaders (and our unelected popular cultural icons) hold the U.S. in contempt. I don’t mean to suggest that we should strive to be more “popular” abroad. I do say that Americans, especially our elected leaders, must have a decent self-respect as well as a decent respect for other nations. And I say that the nation needs its leaders to develop, and be guided by, policies that reflect our national interest; and stand up and defend those policies whenever and wherever they are challenged.
For example, I think it’s shameful when our President and other elected officials continually apologize for what America stands for and for what it has accomplished in its brief lifetime. This country has an exceptional record of success – not just failures. Constant harping on failures only increases contempt for America – because it confirms beliefs that Americans have no pride in their country, no self-respect, and are weak. I can’t accept that most Americans believe these things about themselves, and I think it’s shameful that our leaders are feeding these beliefs here and around the world.
But to feel shame, one must have a decent self-respect. Look around and tell me how many of our leaders you think show decent self-respect. I’ll tell you what I see: self-important, self-centered, self-indulgent and self-righteous pols, who entered public life for personal gain and do not respect their country, their constituents, other countries, or themselves. I think these pols are behaving shamefully and because of an absence of self-respect aren’t even aware – and wouldn’t care anyway. However, people around the world have noticed.
The Olympic decision is not really important by itself, but it may be a valuable alarm signal. What might world opinion of America be telling us about ourselves, that we really need to know? Are we electing the right officials – from school board up to Congress and the President- for the 21st century? When we re-elect someone to office – why do we do it? Are Americans failing to hold our political class accountable for what they do and for what they fail to do? It’s a good time to stop and think.