The Agony of Olympic Defeat

The Wall Street Journal ^ | 10-03-09 | The Wall Street Journal Editorial Staff

[GOP_Lady]

Another reminder that interests trump charm or likability in world affairs.

The International Olympic Committee can be a fickle bunch, so there's no humiliation in Chicago's failure yesterday to win its bid for the 2016 summer games. The Windy City gave a good effort, losing out in the first elimination round to Tokyo, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro, which eventually won the nod.

[Semper Mark]

The City of The Big Shoulders shouldn’t have sent two representatives with broad butts (Shell & Orca), and a little Marxist Quisling with no shoulders.

[Jemian]

... so there's no humiliation in Chicago's failure yesterday to win its bid for the 2016 summer games...

Oh yes there is. ROTFLOL!

[REDWOOD99]

Obama- “I think the IOC desrves the respect of a POTUS visit. Now, here’s Oprah!”

[Loud Mime]

The rest of the world’s leaders are not impressed with Obama.

Think about it; they will fight all copycats who try to take power in their own countries.

[taxesareforever]

“The Windy City gave a good effort”

If you want to consider making racist comments “a good effort”.

[Anti-Bubba182]

"..Oh, and one more silver lining: This is one decision Mr. Obama can't blame on George W. Bush, though no doubt at MSNBC they will try..."

They already have.

[opbuzz]

The big story that noone is looking at is who would benefit in Chicago from their winning the bid.

Anyone connectad with the Pres?

Where is the payback now?

[TomasUSMC]

The last U.S. city to bid for the Summer Games, New York, did scarcely better. It was ousted in the second round in the 2005 vote that gave the 2012 Games to London.

Close to half of the IOC’s 106 members are Europeans.

Chicago got just 18 votes in the first round, with Tokyo squeezing into the second round with 22. Madrid was leading after the first round with 28 votes, while Rio had 26.

So Bush got US to the 2nd Round
obambi got US last place INSTANTLY.

[REDWOOD99]

All the world’s a stage and no one likes a spotlight hog. Our narcissist-in-chief still thinks it’s all about him.

[musicman]

From the article:

" In that sense, the Olympic defeat is a relatively painless reminder that interests trump charm or likability in world affairs. Better to relearn this lesson in a fight over a sporting event than over nuclear missiles."

"Oh, and one more silver lining: This is one decision Mr. Obama can't blame on George W. Bush, though no doubt at MSNBC they will try."

[Psycho_Bunny]

"so there's no humiliation in Chicago's failure yesterday "

heheh....Actually, it's pretty humiliating.

[Seaplaner]

If Mr. Obama and the White House made a mistake, it was in their apparently boundless faith that somehow Mr. Obama's personal popularity would carry the day.

Written another way, Marxist Obama is the very model of the modern malignant narcissist

.

[Thinkin]

“Chicago’s failure yesterday to win its bid for the 2016 summer games...”

Not Chicago’s failure.....In spite of all it’s problems...Chicago is one hell of a great city !!

It’s Obamas failure..His ego is the problem...

[JRandomFreeper]

obambi got US last place INSTANTLY.

So he does have a talent. We just have to figure out how to use it.

He should re-open negotiations on the global warming thing... Kyoto, or whatever.

/johnny

[AZLiberty]

When London won the 2012 Games, it did so through a strategy that made it "all about the athletes". Where the typical Olympics requires hour-plus bus rides to get from the Olympic Village to the venues, London designed an Olympic locale where every athlete could practically walk to his or her event. Since most of the old codgers on the Olympic Committee are former athletes, they understood, and awarded the Games to London.

Applying the same rule to the 2016 Games, it was no contest. If you were a 20-ish athlete, where would you want to be in August of 2016: Chicago, Tokyo, Madrid, or Rio? The coolish "winter" weather should be very good for the marathon as well.

As usual, Obama made it all about him, instead of the athletes.

[nathanbedford]

This editorial misses the point. First, the editorial purpose in rushing to the defense of Mr. Obama who has been humiliated by the fiasco in Copenhagen is inexplicable. Why is the Wall Street Journal defending the president in such a matter? Is not the New York Times well enough equipped to take care of that chore? Why did the Wall Street Journal resorts to such unpersuasive arguments?

Second, the editorial says it will not participate in the "pounding" the president is receiving from his critics for, "somehow shirked the pressing issues," thus trivializing the objections as mere cavils that the president has wasted 24 hours when he should be working on healthcare or taking cognizance of the "dismal September jobs report." It is not the time devoted to Copenhagen (we are aware of the communication capacities of Air Force One); it is the diversion of the national attention from the economic calamity which has befallen us. It is the elevation of style over substance, the substitution of bread and circuses for responsible governance.

Third, the editorial distorts the criticism of the president for squandering prestige of the White House in a quixotic effort. Any fledgling Foreign Service officer knows the president does not put his prestige at risk, the president of the United States of America comes for a photo op to seal the deal. The editorial misses the point when it dismisses the criticism as follows:

... investing the prestige of his office in getting the games, as no President has before, but then Mr. Obama is more closely identified with Chicago than other Presidents have been with other bidding cities.

The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal should be grown up enough to know that it is no justification for a president wantonly to squander the reputation and prestige of his office because the given cause has biographical significance to him. The question is, does the cause itself have significant interest to the nation?

That question is the proper focus of an editorial in the Wall Street Journal. About half the people in Chicago who oppose the welcoming the Olympics to their own city. They oppose it because of the outrageous corruption and their government with which Barack Obama has been so intimately associated. That is the proper subject for an editorial in the nation's leading newspaper of finance and news. But the editorial could find not a word to spare on this subject.

Which brings us back to our initial question, why is the Wall Street Journal carrying water for the president?

[WKUHilltopper]

Maybe Zero can reimburse the taxpayers for he and his wife’s little junket—not to mention the carbon imprint these fools left.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

it is no justification for a president wantonly to squander the reputation and prestige of his office because the given cause has biographical significance to him.

The time to worry about squandering the reputation and prestige of his office was before he deliberately "squandered" the reputation of the country his office represents, with his "apology" (really a self-hyping boasting) tour.

[no dems]

London's Guardian Newspaper: Obamas were "humiliated on the International Stage" and President Obama is "all style and no substance".