Chicago Olympics bid rejected out of hand
Note 7:20 p.m.: more comments have been added to this entry.)
Emily B. writes:
It is a glorious day! I was decorating Halloween Trick-or-treat pails with my children and listening to Glenn Beck when I heard this wonderful news. I went to the kitchen and, oh my goodness, found myself literally jumping for joy! I don’t do that, but I did!
Glenn and others are ecstatic and having a field day. They can’t stop laughing at Obama’s failure.
Here’s the
story from the BBC.
And Drudge’s headline is:
THE EGO HAS LANDED
Comments
Paul K. writes:
Today’s news offers a double dose of satisfaction for those of us who enjoy seeing mighty egos laid low. First, the inability of Obama to work his wiles on the IOC, and then David Letterman being forced to acknowledge having had sex with women who worked on his staff.
I have never understood the appeal of Letterman. Jay Leno at least seems like a good-natured person, one whom I might enjoy having dinner with. David Letterman has a creepy quality, angry and nihilistic, and I have no desire to watch him perform.
As recently as Gatesgate, you observed,
Now let us remember that David Letterman is not just a comic. He’s a “comic” whose main theme is to subvert all meaning and value. Traditional comics see the humor of the world while reaffirming the world. Letterman’s loutish “humor” deconstructs any world.
Subverting all meaning and value is a self-interested exercise in Letterman’s case.
LA replies:
By the standards of his world and his audience, by the standards of our “culture,” how does the admission that he’s had sexual relations with his female staffers bring Letterman low?
Gintas writes:
I can’t wait for the 2010 World Cup, in South Africa. I am quite sure all will go smoothly, there is certain to be a heightened level of aplomb there. Do you suppose SA will bring in security help from neighboring Zimbabwe?
Did you know the contenders were Libya/Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, and South Africa?!
Sage McLaughlin writes:
Well, it appears that what we’ve all long suspected has finally become quite clear: The IOC is a racist organization.
Seriously, though, why would Obama put his chin out there like this? My theory is that he really believes that he transcends the office of the Presidency, that he can simply decide at discrete times to represent merely himself rather than America as a whole, and that people around the world are actually as enamored with him as Chris Matthews is. It never occurs to him that people might actually want to stick it to America, and that the opportunity to embarrass an American president was simply too tempting to let it go by.
Liberals will of course complain about conservatives’ glee over seeing America rejected in this way, but that’s because they think we actually care about the Games. And besides, once Obama invests himself so personlly in something—literally, he and Michelle tried to sell the IOC on the idea that their pesonal histories were such an inspiration to the world that it justified putting the games in their home political turf—it’s inevitable that Obama skeptics will want to see the endeavor fail.
Gintas writes:
People are laughing and mocking. I’m waiting for Obama to defend himself heroically against a dangerous pigeon on the White House lawn*.
* Like Jimmy Carter and the killer rabbit.
LA replies:
Well, I think this absurd event is Obama’s version of Jimmy Carter’s running in a six mile race and being overcome by heat exhaustion. The frontpage New York Times headline said, “Carter, exhausted, drops out of race.” What moron of a president would gratuitously put himself in a situation where he could humiliate himself like that? Carter. Obama.
Paul K. writes:
I don’t know that Letterman’s audience is composed entirely of his fellow nihilists. I’ve read that the audience laughed and applauded as Letterman made his admission last night, but it seems to respond reflexively to anything the host says as if it were funny.
I suppose most people who like Letterman are liberals, and liberals generally express discomfort with the idea that a man in a position to hire, fire, and promote employees would also have sexual relations with those employees. This is not comparable to the usual sexual escapades of a celebrity. Letterman could have fulfilled his sexual desires outside of the workplace, without resorting to women over whom he has power. He is an employee of a publicly held corporation, and I assume that corporation has rules against such relationships, rules written by liberals. Also, I’m sure Carolyn Hax could opine on the potential inequities if Letterman is not open to bisexual or interracial relationships.
A. Zarkov writes:
How long will it take for someone in the Obama camp to bring up racism as an explanation of why Chicago lost its bid to host the 2016 Olympics? They need not accuse the IOC of racism because they can blame it on domestic racists who have talked down the president and Chicago (a hell hole if there ever was one). I wonder if the well publicized beating death of an innocent school student had anything to do with tarnishing the image of Chicago?
LA replies:
That’s an interesting theory. Maureen Dowd and Joe Klein could write columns charging that the anti-Obamacare protesters have set off a wave of anti-Obama racism that has now crossed the Atlantic.
Richard Sutta writes:
Once the balloon’s been pricked can it be reinflated? Here’s hoping October 2, 2009 marks the high water mark of this administration. Let’s not forget that Pelosi and Reid have to keep the troops in line, all of them, to pass Obamacare. How many will stick with a laughingstock?
Ray G. writes:
I’m glad Chicago lost it because Hussein bin Obama made a fool of himself, hustling and lobbying to get the games, which was only a payback to his Chicago machine backers.
Now that unemployment is still rising, productivity down, the deficit and debt are much higher than in recent years, our military posture against militant Islam weakening, we are stuck with an ego-obsessed celebrity as our president.
Obama is anti-business, anti-free enterprise; he is for centrally planned economics, which favors political supporters and industries sympathetic with the powers that be.
How’s that hope and change working out for ya?
October 3
Anna writes:
Obama had to go to Copenhagen. He owed it to his cronies in Chicago. If Chicago won, good for him. Chicago lost, and there are plenty of excuses available.
What interested me most, is almost an aside. They were not prepared for this. I had thought that Michelle Obama was a much better speaker (I have not heard her before) than what I saw and heard. She’s almost plastic. While I can stretch my generosity to understand her feelings behind calling her father her hero, I can’t stretch the connection from her personal recollections to Chicago’s bid for the Olympics.
Obama, while I only read some of his presentation, had nothing addressed “to the moment” and to the purpose of the venue to offer. It seemed a rehash of what some would call the “same old, same old.”
You may have been right, Mr. Auster, about his election being in the best interest of the country. It has not only shown his agenda, but even supporters are beginning to question if he can move beyond campaigning and show some substance. [LA replies: this may seem a tiny quibble, but I would never say that something bad is in our best interests, which sounds as though one is saying that something bad is good. I said that the badness that Obama would unleash on America might finally awaken Americans to the nature of the liberal and black agenda so that they would start to oppose it.]
Here I will digress. Obama’s foibles are not enough to change the impetus of his agenda. It has been too well-ingrained in the American psyche over the last 50 years. Witness a recent incident in Gaffney, SC where a bank manager removed American flags placed in honor of a Marine. Brenda Earls said “the manager told her they prohibited flags on the property “because it might offend some of our customers.”
The apology stated it was a result of “miscommunication.” Isn’t it amazing. Gaffney, SC has a population of around 13,000. Yet an employee of the Bank of America in this mid-sized town was distressed about showing American flags. Where does this thinking come from and do I need to ask if the name of the bank is a misnomer?
Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 02, 2009 12:01 PM | Send