The Olympics: Obama comes up empty

“What was he thinking?” asked Josh Gerstein in Politico.com. When President Obama flew to Copenhagen last week to personally urge the International Olympic Committee to pick his hometown of Chicago as the site of the 2016 Summer Olympics, even supporters fretted that he was needlessly risking his own prestige. The IOC, it turned out, knocked Chicago out of contention in the first round, leaving Obama looking not only “unsuccessful but entirely ineffective.” He also came across as astoundingly “vain,” said George Will in The Washington Post. Both he and wife Michelle “gave heartfelt speeches about … themselves,” employing the “I” pronoun 70 times as they essentially argued that “their fascinating selves” were what made Chicago’s case compelling. It’s as if the president actually believes that there is no challenge “that cannot be melted by the sunshine of the Obama persona.” But as the drubbing in Copenhagen made clear, “in the contest between the world and any president’s charm, bet on the world.”

This episode says far more about Obama’s critics than it does about him, said Paul Krugman in The New York Times. When word came that Chicago’s Olympic bid had failed, “cheers erupted” at the headquarters of the conservative Weekly Standard. Rush Limbaugh declared himself “gleeful.” The reaction was juvenile, but more than that, it demonstrated an ugly truth about Obama’s opposition: “If Republicans think something might be good for the president, they’re against it—whether or not it’s good for America.” In any event, most Americans will not fault Obama for “going to bat for his country,” said Lynn Sweet in the Chicago Sun-Times. What kind of president would sit on the sidelines while his city—and his country—sought to host the Olympics?

Besides, it could have been worse, said Steve Chapman in the Chicago Tribune. Chicago could have won, and my city would have had to spend years and billions building stadiums and other venues we wouldn’t use again. Montreal, which hosted the 1976 Games, only recently paid off its last bills, while Athens, the 2004 host, spent three times what it had planned. The cost of the 2012 Games in London, still three years away, has already quadrupled to $15 billion—all for a “grandiose vanity project.” It was a misstep for Obama to invite “a small group of foreigners to hand him his hindquarters on a platter. But for Chicago, the rejection is a blessing in disguise.”

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