They’re just a bunch of racists, don’t you see?

around acting like they owned the World; the Americans walked around like they didn’t care who owned the World. Comrade Obama doesn’t get that.

and he sounded like he was on the verge of calling for an investigation into the voting. That would be just great, Jesse. Chicago gets the axe in the first round, and you want to be a vindictive sore loser? I would say that cooler heads will prevail and just accept loss gracefully, but a certain Someone doesn’t know when to quit lost causes and stay the course in winnable ones.

As Juan Antonio Samaranch might say, “This has been an exceptional Olympic bid by Chicago.”

Here’s hoping that’s the end of it.

You thought the Olympics are represented by Oprah who couldn’t make it 1/8th of the way around a track?

That alone would make me vote against Chicago!

I mean sweet Jesus – Michelle and Oprah poster girls for the Olympics…Rio, Rio – Madrid … anything but that!

www.jeannie-ology.com

the phrase “we are prosperous” might have figured into those “why we are liked/disliked” calculations. Not so much, these days.

… but I’m sure NBC did not sign up for five consecutive non-US summer Olympics when they extended their rights to the Games a few years ago. I half-think the director of NBC Sports got on the phone with the IOC chairman after Rio was announced and said “You’ve had your fun. LA 2020 or we walk.”.

You need to look at a few things.

1. The tri-athalon. Where would they do the swimming part of that, Let’s see Lake Michigan, or the beaches of Rio. I know where I would pick.

2. Maybe if the murder rate wasn’t so damn high, the IOC would have felt safe to have the Olympics there.

And to agree with Moe, this should be a harsh lesson to Obama, that the world as a whole does not care who is at the head of the U.S. as long as the U.S is seen as the superpower, we are going to get a case of the ass from the rest of the world. Which means that we need to work toward our self interest in foreign affairs and nothing else.

Just like the mob boss in The Bronx Tale, I would rather be respected than liked, and if I have to choose between being respected and being feared, I would rather have feared.

that Chicago wasn’t chosen. 50% of the people in Chicago didn’t want it anyway. And I don’t feel that the U.S. was snubbed. I feel that Obama/Michelle/Oprah were snubbed, which makes me happy.

Katie Connoly writes that if things had gone poorly in Chicago, Obama would have been tied to the fiasco, while not noting that the Olympics would have been held, if all goes Obama’s way, at the end of his second term, and four years after the election of 2012.

What a complete idiot.

Bearing that in mind, some quotes:

“Olympics-related screw-ups may have no concrete bearing on Obama’s capacity to govern, but they do make easy campaign ads. It’s not hard to imagine attack ads tying whatever planning ineptitude that was making news back to the White House. And while most voters outside of Chicago wouldn’t care all that much, such issues provide an unwanted distraction for the White House.”

And:

“This is a tad humiliating for the president, but his embarrassment will be short-lived, especially if he demonstrates some good humor about it. Republicans will probably criticize him for skipping the country for a day instead of focusing on Iran or Afghanistan, but those attacks won’t stick. He wasn’t even gone 24 hours, and General McChrystal joined him on Air Force One. This will be fodder for late-night comedians and talk-back radio for a day or two. But winning the Olympics could have bogged down his entire presidency.”

Again, sweetie, the Chicago Olympics were to be held in 2016. Not very sharp knives in the Newsweek drawer it seems.

From the al-Reuters piece:
“Obama had originally planned not to go but changed his mind when it was clear that other leaders wanting their countries to host the 2016 Games would be there.”

Criminy what a complete doofus. He wouldn’t know leadership if it bit him on the abs.

The ’84 L.A. Summer Olympics made a huge profit and was by all measures an unprecedented success. This is by far the exception to the rule; usually it is a hideous, endless burden on the taxpayers. Peter Ueberroth was an organizing genius and capitalist hero.

I was living there then – a lot of Angelenos left town, there was NO traffic, the weather suddenly got perfect and it was a simply spectacular 2 weeks. Except for the nutjob who ran over some people in Westwood Village (my stomping grounds) the Friday evening before the opening ceremonies.

Capitalism being the huge bugaboo it is now, the likelihood of that happening again (especially here in the United Socialist States of America) is pretty much nil. Rio kind of sounds like fun – might have to break my recent boycott of the Olympics.

While I must admit my joy that Dear leader got his rear handed to him despite his secret weapons (Michelle and Oprah). I am equally disappointed that the World didn’t get to see up close and personal how democrats run a town and how that whole hope and change thing works. Thanks IOC for not drinking the kool aid.

…or as Maureen Dowd’s next colum puts it:

Rio Wins, Boy!

I’m having a hard time caring. In the X-games a guy on a bicycle can launch himself into the air, spin three complete revolutions land on two tires. Am I supposed to get excited about a guy successfully reading a teleprompter bringing a discus thrower to America? We created our own sports, our own democracy and our own economy, none of which the world has ever seen before. So bring on the Monster Trucks and beer and rock-and-roll and I’ll be happy.

they know that they can take the Obama administration for granted.

“Let’s see, BFF Obama, how much do I want to contribute? Why, I’m thinking, Zero™!”