Sure, President Obama screwed up, either by wrongly thinking Chicago would win and that he could get a cheap win by rushing to the head of the parade in Copenhagen to look like he led the victory; or by wrongly thinking his mere presence and some words would sway bobbysoxer IOC voters happy to just bathe in his presence.
But if polls are to be believed, a lot of people in Chicago will be happy the effort failed:
A poll released this month by the Chicago Tribune showed residents almost evenly split, with 47 percent in favor of the bid and 45 percent against; that's a drop from the 2-1 support the newspaper found in a February poll.
And I don't think it would be wrong to believe that President Obama looked forward to a 2016 Chicago Summer Olympics as a celebration of him in his last year of his second term.
As an American I am not happy that Chicago lost. But ...
The president didn't approach this as an American effort--it was clearly a partisan effort. Why else say this in trying to sway the vote?
Obama held out the enticing prospect of a Chicago games helping to reconnect the United States with the world after the presidency of George W. Bush. He told the IOC that the "full force of the White House" would be applied so "visitors from all around the world feel welcome and will come away with a sense of the incredible diversity of the American people."
Oh, come on! Is there no goal so low that President Obama won't trot out the "blame Bush" line? If the president's supporters want to complain that Republicans are gloating over "America's" defeat, how do they explain President Obama's low partisanship in his bid?
I wasn't even going to comment on our defeat until I read that bit of outrageous pandering.
And if it's to be a debate over who celebrates America's defeats, I propose we reopen the whole Iraq War issue. If gloating over a lost Olympics is bad, where does the anti-war side fit in the continuum of shame given their celebration of car-bombing "Minutmen" blowing up our troops?
I'm sorry Chicago lost the Olympics bid.
But I'm more sorry that our administration is so inept that it intervened so poorly in a fight it didn't even know we were losing. This does not bode well for the president's chances to persuade thug rulers to be nice.
And I'm really sorry that our Left apparently cares more about the 2016 Olympics than winning our wars.
UPDATE: It wasn't unreasonable at all to think the president was looking forward to the end of his second term. Yep, all those flags with all those 'O's.
