As a lifelong Chicagoland resident, I could not be happier with this result. I did not want the Olympics here for a number of reasons. First and foremost, the sheer cost was going to be astronomical. Since Chicago doesn’t even use the dollar as currency anymore (we’ve been on the Daley Political Favor Standard for about 40 years), there’d be no choice but to raise taxes on everyone else in Illinois to pay for this mess.
Beyond that, however, it’s great to see Obama’s Messiah status challenged. He believes that he’s invulnerable and loved like a god overseas, and to have an international body completely crush him (especially after he blew off Gen. McChrystal and instead went to Copenhagen to whine about the Olympics) is heartening and great entertainment. Yes, our POTUS is a source of entertainment. Deal with it.
The Obamas’ little political campaign lost for a couple of reasons, and it was completely their fault (ok, it was also Richard Daley’s fault, but everything that happens wrong in Chicago, from shortened “Walk” signs to window washers spilling stuff on you, is Daley’s fault).
First, Obama has spent the last 9 months telling the world how crappy this country is. He’s given his World Apology Tour multiple times, saying how the U.S. is this and that, bad and worse, racist, unjust, among other things. And then, he goes to the IOC and says, hey, we’d be a great country to have the Olympics in. After he spent 9 months telling the world we suck. I mean, come on, that’s elementary math. The IOC members would be laughed out of their seats for putting the Olympics in a country whose own president admitted that it was ‘in the dark ages.’
The second reason is his arrogance. European bloc countries may not be as tough as us, they may not be as powerful as us or as free as us, and we may have had to save their collective butts in two world wars…but…BUT…they are not complete buffoons. They know when they are being talked down to, and they can’t have taken a shine to Obama trying to anoint himself the savior of the world.
Finally, Michelle Obama. Her ridiculous, rambling speech, which included crying and insane references to sitting on her father’s lap and watching Carl Lewis (which either meant she sat on her dad’s lap when she was 20 or she was fabricating a story) probably pissed off many more IOC voters than it put a tear in their eyes.
Now, the burning question is this: if Obama the Rockstar, Obama the Savior and Obama the World Leader cannot convince a body of snobby Europeans to put the Olympics in our country…how is he going to convince hard-line Iran to not build nukes? Or North Korea to not shoot nukes at Japan? Or Putin to not restart the Soviet Union? Or…well…you get the point.
Obama was on his home turf, speaking to a European crowd who used to adore him and he didn’t even place…he finished dead last. That should give everyone pause; he wouldn’t have burned that much political capital if he had not been SURE he was going to win. Valerie Jarrett said that WH’s intel said they were “very close,” even though in reality, Chicago didn’t have a chance. I mean, come on, where were we going to build the Olympic village? On Lake Michigan? Seriously. Have you seen our city? Does it look like we have room to build more things? And have you ridden our public transportation? It’s disastrous.
But I digress. My point is that if the WH was so sure that a Chicago win was going to happen, and their intel is that bad about a stupid Olympic bid, how can we trust them with ANY foreign policy issues?
