By now most of you probably heard that the Big Guy’s trip to Copenhagen to try to get the Olympics in Chicago was epic fail. Chicago got thrown out in the first round, and the prize goes to Brazil. The Brazilian president was present as well. This is epic fail on the part of the White House. As Jim Geraghty points out, the President should only really appear when the deal is already done. That’s what I suspect the Brazilian president was doing there. Getting thrown out in the first round wasn’t just a “no thanks” that was a “f**k you”. I’m guessing they wanted to punish Obama for the arrogance of showing up believing he was going to upstage the Brazilian leader, and undo what was already done.
16 thoughts on “Olympic Sized Fail”
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OK, now that Obammy has pissed off the sports fans, it’s time to move on Impeachment. If he can’t even hoodwink a few pansy euros into sending the Olympics to Chicago, what good is he?
Nah, nothing so complicated or conspiratorial. Rio won on one word.
Carnival.
Who wouldn’t want to be at the Olympics in that town? PAR-TEY!
This news pleases me to no end.
I harbor little love for the politicians that run Chicago. Had the olympics come to Chicago, this is what would have gone down:
1) Chicago politicians would have taken the glory.
2) The buddies of Chicago politicians would have taken the money.
3) The people of Chicago would have taken the bill.
I’ll bet that there are some libtard Obamunists out there who have already started saying that this Olympic bid loss is really somehow just G. W. Bush’s fault.
Ronnie,
Already done. Rowland Burris of Illinois,
“The image of the U. S. has been so tarnished in the last 8 years that, even Barack Obama making an unprecedented pitch for the games could not overcome the hatred the world has for us as a result of George Bush.”
Why am I not surprised … in the least … to hear that coming from Roland Burris. He’s a man of poor character, a Chicago insider, someone who has gotten where he is because it was given to him (in this case, the Senate seat given him by impeached Gov. Blagojevich) … and now, he’s trying to cover Daley and Obama both.
He’s a pawn, and a worm.
And he knows it.
Out of curiosity, what were Queen Sofia and King Juan Carlos of Spain doing there? Were they also attempting to upstage the Brazilian Leader? I guess the Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama was also in on that upstaging as well.
Kathy,
What the Crowned heads of Spain were doing there was “Head of State” functions – that is, more-or-less figurehead public appearances that the Office of the VICE President usually makes. I can only imagine that Japan has no major legislation pending, nor any overseas military forces it needs to check in on for their “Head of Government” to have been present. Since in the US, the roles of “Head of State” and “Head of Government” are rolled into the Presidency (except where the Vice President gets delegated to stand in at photo-ops for the President) we have one person trying to do two functions where most other nations have two people each holding only one function (e.g. the Queen of the United Kingdom and the Prime Minister).
What’s more important – photo-ops or actually working? I’d say the present President’s actions answer that for us rather succinctly.
Kathy,
I had only heard the Brazilian President. I stand corrected on that count. But this was still epic fail on the part of Obama.
I’m not sure how “wrong” you were, dear. I was reading some of the stories from Obama’s announcement that he was attending. It would seem that at the point Obama suddenly decided to go, the only head of government scheduled to attend was the Brazilian President. The Spanish King & Queen were going to support the bid and visit the Danish Queen, but they didn’t seem to be directly involved in the bid. (I could be wrong, as I didn’t watch the bids themselves, but I didn’t see any reference to their delivery, just that they were there to support it.) As Lysander argues, a perfect duty for ceremonious head of state. I didn’t see any references for the Japanese PM to show up until after Obama announced his trip.
We used to live in chi-town. My mom is far left and she never wanted it. She said that since they have lost that bid Daley is done. And this is coming from a chicago bred ultra liberal. When it comes to daley I’m not so sure. It is chicago after all.
Yeah, I don’t buy that. There’s plenty of dead people in Chicago who can be counted to turn out on election day if Daley is feeling the pinch.
I see nothing out of the ordinary for a head of state (President, Prime Minister, etc.) to go and support a nation’s bid to host the olympics.
And there were four nations in the running. I don’t see how being the head of state of one of 3 out of 4 makes you a failure, or that failed efforts to help get the bid can be described as “epic.”
Sure. Obama is or was (at least) part of the Chicago Machine, run by Richard Daley. And this was Daley’s baby, in a way. We know that Daley wields too much power, and that much of that power is due to an establishment of corruption and cover and pay-to-play. And we all have reason to despise the man and his establishment. I am sure we all like to think that the connections are very deep, very sinister, that Obama played Daley’s lap-dog, and that Daley has far too much power and influence with regard to the office of the President. But I am also sure some people would pursue this mainly to reinforce their own prior views and opinions.
It’s as if many people are looking for fodder with which to criticize Obama. You needn’t look that hard, folks.
Sheesh, we gave Brazil two billion dollars for offshore oil-exploration and STILL don’t get the Olympics? Is our credit that low now, or did most of that money go to Soros’ company? Is that why Democrats don’t believe in trickle-down economics, because they’re familiar with skimming the money first?
IMO the Spanish royals really don’t have jobs apart from showing-up and looking royal and regal – they go up to Denmark to party, they go anywhere the Yacht will take them. Yee-haw!
Well I guess we should now send that “Mission Accomplished” banner to Chicago