Ah, but you know something? One American did come out well from all this. Condoleezza Rice didn't have to go to New York to cheerlead for New York's Olympic Bid. And indeed, shortly after her speech to a New York rally in support of New York's bid to host the games, she got props from the locals for her efforts.....
An animated Secretary of State rallies the crowd in New York last week before the Olympic Committee's meeting in Singapore.
One of the things that I noticed was that shortly after Dr. Rice made a splash in the middle of Hillary's territory, picking up chits with the local Republicans (okay, I know, it's Bloomberg, but there are Republicans in that town, and don't think that she didn't check in with Pataki and Rudy before flying in...) for giving NYC the Old College Try, Hillary jumped at the chance to fly to Singapore to see if she could rope in the games for NYC. Thankfully, her "charm" can't outdo that of Tony Blair, David Beckham, and Sebastian Coe. But that didn't stop Hillary from trying to move the spotlight back to her....
In an astounding makeover that still has New Yorker's buzzing, Senator Clinton continually tried to draw attention away from Dr. Rice during the Olympic rally last weekend. Here, pictured in a Mets hat and an ill-fitting black pantsuit, Senator Clinton looks on as Dr. Rice addresses the crowd...
I strongly suspect that Hillary's reactive self was motivated to try to go to Singapore to try to win the games for NYC by Condi's presence in NY. It's the Summer of 2005, there's no campaign going on right now. For her part, Condi begged off the trip because of scheduling conflicts (she is home today prepping for G-8 in Gleneagles and China-Japan-Korea next week). As a result, Condi got the benefit from being associated with the Olympic effort, but not the failure of the loss. Clinton is saddled with that, for the time being.
BTW, mehears that Pataki has been making 2006 noises. Falling on his sword to bruise up Hillary for the Party's sake? Sweet!
Be Seeing You,
Chris