Obama Fails to Bring Olympics Home

President Barack Obama pulled out all the stops to bring the 2016 Olympics to his adopted home town, Chicago. He not only personally flew to Copenhagen to lobby the International Olympic Committee, but brought his wife Michelle and Oprah Winfrey.

In the end, having placed his prestige on the line, President Obama executed an epic fail. Chicago was eliminated in the first round of voting. Eventually Rio de Janeiro was chosen to host the 2016 Olympic Games.

President Obama certainly gave an impassioned pitch before the International Olympic Committee. His speech seemed to imply that it was as much about him as it was about Chicago, the United States, and the Olympic Spirit.

"Then I came to Chicago. And on those Chicago streets, I worked alongside men and women who were black and white; Latino and Asian; people of every class and nationality and religion. I came to discover that Chicago is that most American of American cities, but one where citizens from more than 130 nations inhabit a rich tapestry of distinctive neighborhoods.

"Each one of those neighborhoods - from Greektown to the Ukrainian Village; from Devon to Pilsen to Washington Park - has its own unique character, history, song, and sometimes language. But each is also a part of our city - one city - a city where I finally found a home."

Many pundits, such as Byron York of the Washington Examiner, wondered whether jetting to Copenhagen to pitch Chicago for the Olympics was the best use of President Obama's time. With the war in Afghanistan raging, a nuclear and missile crisis in Iran brewing, and massive unemployment in the United States persisting, many thought that the President had better things to do.

Add to all that the recent news stories of fatal gang fights in Chicago, polling data that suggested that many people in Chicago did not want the hassle of hosting the Olympics, and the virtual certainty that the corrupt, political culture of Chicago would taint the operation of the Olympics, many wondered what incentive the International Olympic Committee had for choosing Chicago.

Still, it was conventional wisdom that President Obama would not have flown to Copenhagen had the Olympics not been in the bag. The President would surely not have risked damaging his prestige by gambling that a visitation by the One might not sway the members of the International Olympic Committee.

But, alas, it seems to have been so. President Obama wasted his and the country's time with a quixotic trip to Copenhagen that seems to have been doomed from the start. While President Obama lacks the time to meet with his commander in Afghanistan, General McChrystal, he had the time for this. It was a political blunder of monumental proportions pursuing a goal that seemed, considering everything else that is on the President's plate, frivolous. But such is the ego of the President of the United States that makes him think he can get people to do anything, whether it is Iran to give up nuclear weapons, the Israelis and the Palestinians to make peace, or to bring the Olympics to one of the most corrupt cities in America. The revelation that he cannot, after all, walk on water must be devastating news for the President. But humiliation, if one learns from it, can lead to wisdom. Will that happen? Or will the President's men scramble to blame the debacle on George W. Bush and the vast right wing conspiracy?

Might as well blame it on Rio.

Sources:President Obama's Remarks at IOC Meeting, White House, October 2nd, 2009

Iran smolders, Afghanistan burns, and Obama heads to...Denmark, Byron York, Washington Examiner, October 1st, 2009

Obama's No-Time-for-Olympics-Trip Pledge Reaches Its Expiration Date, Jim Geraghty, National Review On Line, September 28th, 2009