Actually, Camp David is a perfect place for a summit—for one thing, we don’t have to deal with the distractions of protesters regardless of political persuasion (the press, of course, will have a big presence there). There has been many high-profile international summits at Camp David, and they are well-equipped to handle the G-8 summit.
I agree that probably all of our hosted international summits of this type should be hosted at Camp David...depending on crowds and the size of the delegations and what not. However could they handle the large staff sizes that tend to be involved with these summits(sometimes hundreds)? Granted, a smaller controlled intimate setting which necessarily limits staff numbers might be desired by these thugs. Certain private communications could be monitored for example.
The G8’s however tend to lend a bit of pizzazz to the aura of the host cities, protests notwithstanding, and from the article’s context, it appears Chicago’s pols were looking forward to any boost Chicago could gain from hosting the summit. The Olympics debacle was a disaster for them and Obama failed them big time!
I hope the G8 invitees all say “It’s Chicago or , He— No, we don’t go!”