Very surprised that Chicago is out. Amazed that Obama would go to Copenhagen and get punked like this. It makes him look like a chump. I wrongly assumed he had it fixed or he would not have gone. Wow.
I know a lot of people will be sad about it, and for them I am sorry. But I have always been against having the Olympics here. I think we dodged a bullet. The taxpayers of Illinois, Cook County and Chicago were going to get clobbered, with a huge amount of inconvenience on top of it.
The whole thing makes Obama look like a dope. What was he thinking? I could not believe he would go and put himself at the mercy of these guys. That was too stupid to believe. I speculate that the IOC wanted to show the USA it could not be pushed around. In other words, going in person backfired.
I am repeatedly amazed at the way Obama mishandles things. I keep thinking, “oh, ah ha, I see, he must have something up his sleeve!” And then he never does! He’s always just winging it! A smile and a shoe shine will just get you so far, pal.
As Bugs Bunny used to say, “what a maroon!”
We are truly screwed with this guy as Chief Executive and Commander in Chief.
UPDATE: Michael Barone weighs in.
UPDATE II: Baseball Crank weighs in:
… you don’t publicly stake your prestige on something that’s not (1) hugely important (2) a done deal or (3) ideally, both. All presidents suffer defeats and embarrassments, but you generally don’t walk right into one on an issue of purely local importance to your home city. Obama’s and the nation’s standing in the world can’t help but be chipped away by this; the next time he goes jetting off to a summit or some other international event, people won’t be so quick to assume that he has all figured out in advance how he’s going to get what he wants. That aura, that mystique is a thing of value that the President is supposed to husband carefully for when the nation really needs it. Bush was impotent by the end of his presidency because he’d burned that up, but he had it for the better part of five years. Obama’s losing it already.
What a waste.
Via Vodkapundit.
UPDATE III: Does this remind anyone else of the Crowley/Gates matter? Another case where Obama really did not need to get himself involved. Yet he waded into it, made ti about himself, when it did not have to be about him, and did no one any good by doing it, and squandered credibility in doing so?
How come he does not instinctively avoid high risk / low return plays? Why does he have such a poor gut on this stuff?
It’s weird.
I agree that this is worrying in the long term. He ought not to have gone. Then it wouldn’t have mattered. But as far as the Olympics go, boy, are you guys lucky! I am thinking of leaving for the whole of 2012.
Good lord, I am stunned. I really thought we were going to get stuck with this disaster, and was wondering how I could convince my wife to move to Indiana. Now I feel like the guy in the electric chair who just heard that the governor granted him clemency.
I think Obama’s problem is that because he’s bedazzled white people in academia and politics for years with his “post-racial” bull-hockey, he can thinks that will translate into being able to hornswaggle non-Americans. However, being literally foreign to that peculiarly American concept of racial guilt, foreigners aren’t susceptable to the gambit.
BTW, did you see that Obama’s final presentation to the IOC included a line about how the Chicago Olympics would “be a restoration of what the United States is all about,” something that “has been lost” “over the last several years”?
Jeez, it’s always about Bush with this guy, isn’t it?
Well, it sure as hell isn’t because Obama is using what we have seen before – a belief in his stupidity that allows purposes (and achievements) to move on unhindered below the bullshit of the media. The old days when we hoped (and sometimes found) the policy was rope-a-dope are gone – though just wearing us down with the sheer quantity and audacity of corruption may be another (and decidedly lesser) form.
Also, could we lose some of those “brilliant” adjectives for a while – even if they have been pretty revealing. Letterman jokes that Palin would think her book had to be translated to be read in England – but it is, after all, Obama who describes the speakers of Austrian.
Much less surprised. This guy walks around with a sign draped around his neck that says “Roll Me.”
One termer.
Didn’t all the other finalists send their heads-of-state to present as well? Is there something bad about even entering a contest if you don’t know already that you will win?
I too think that we dodged a bullet on this one. The IOC is an organization that is dictatorial, by getting the Olympics we would be signing away local and state control of budgets, transportation, planning & zoning, and even freedoms to an unelected bureaucracy.
But I don’t think that this is a story about Obama.
I am a little sad, because we would have gotten the bike racing events (except for the velodrome stuff) here in Madison. So theoretically we could have soaked Chicago/Illinois for the bucks and reaped the benefits – although I am sure that the locals would have found a way to dip into my wallet for something like road improvements or a groovy high speed train to/from Chicago.
Still, there was an estimate that the bike races would have taken 3500 or so of the area’s 8000 hotel rooms. This town would have been a total nightmare as the course is right in the middle of the city for the time trial and the roads would be closed for days. Way too many people and a huge inconvenience. I can’t even imagine how bad it would have been in Chicago.
I thought as you did Lex that O had the whole thing fixed before he went.
Much less surprised. This guy walks around with a sign draped around his neck that says “Roll Me.” – Mrs. Davis
LOL.
Wow. Did not expect this, and yet, well, what can I say? Mrs. Davis has a point. That’s what it looks like.
“I thought as you did Lex that O had the whole thing fixed before he went.”
If he didn’t he should have sent someone else. He could have sent his wife, Oprah, Biden and Daley. No one would have thought it was weird to not go in person. He blew it.
“Is there something bad about even entering a contest if you don’t know already that you will win?”
Not sports contests. But applications to a committee? Usually the formal process is a facade. Like a job posting. The people hiring know who they want, they post the job, interview a bunch of people to show that the process was “fair”, then hire the person they were going to hire all along. Also, like in a business where there is a formal review process, with written evaluations, etc. At the end, the individuals who are well-connected with the influential people get the good scores and get the jobs.
In Chicago, everyone assumes that any process that is not totally transparent is fixed. I know people who are convinced that the Bulls basketball victories when Jordan as on the team were fixed.
I am very happy that the Olympics will not be in Chicago. A few weeks ago I sat for almost 90 minutes in traffic waiting to park at Soldiers field for a pre-season Bears game. I can’t imagine the traffic problems that would exist if the Olympics came here or how high my taxes would climb.
What I can’t understand is why Obama worked so hard to get the games here. The games showcase non-paid athletes who train for years, the winner is given the award for the best performance (subject usually to defnite defined standards ie. the fastest runner is the winner), have the drive to be recognized as the best in their event and do it all because they love what they do. This is the complete opposite of the way Obama sees the world or wants the US to function.
“What I can’t understand is why Obama worked so hard to get the games here.”
The Games in Chicago would have given control of billions of dollars to the Machine that created him. It would have made his allies much more powerful, which would have benefited him.
Of course Chicago lost. King Richard II did not count the votes in this election.
“A smile and a shoe shine will just get you so far, pal”
Somehow, Willie Loman got appointed CEO of the company, without going through the usual intermediate stages–branch manager, national sales manager, etc. He doesn’t know much about all the various activities he’s suddenly responsible for, and isn’t really all that interested in them, anyhow, so he does what he knows and likes doing: go on sales calls.
zerObqama’s problem is that he simply doesn’t understand how executives operate. No CEO would ever put him/herself in the position this clown did on this issue.
As President of the US this issue was noise. He didn’t have it locked. He demonstrated to the world that he doesn’t have a clue how to lead. And clearly, his senior staff totally screwed up letting him do this to himself.
Lex,
Pres. Obama is in a bubble of Chicagoans who realy wanted to win the Olympics for Chicago…and just could not see that Chicago would lose even if Obama showed up.
Thus group wish fulfilment fantasies are turns into a personal loss for Obama.
Trent, maybe so.
Groupthink may well be part of the problem.
It would have been a bacchanalia of patronage. You are indeed fortunate, as are the federal taxpayers.
Any Bears fan could tell you that they should have sent Ditka to Copenhagen.
“What was he thinking?”
He doesn’t think He is arrogant enough to be convinced that he can persuade anyone about anything. “I have a gift, Harry”, he told Dingy Harry (Reid). Some gift, ehh?
He is just so in love with himself, isn’t he? I’ve never known anyone like him. I mean, I’ve known narcissists, but never one who was apparently so surrounded with encouragers and enablers of this magnitude…
David: “so he does what he knows and likes doing, go on sales calls.”
Exactly.
And it has always worked for him.
Worst of all, he really thinks that’s all you have to do. He doesn’t really even know all the other stuff even exists.
Sarkozy said he is naive, and so egostical that nothing can penetrate his naivete.
Why does he have such a poor gut on this stuff?
Because he’s never been an executive leader before. He’s never been the one guy at the top that everyone watches. He’s always been a hot house flower making his way in the world by being “the first black person to do X”. As such, people have always focused almost solely on his positive qualities while making a concerted effort to ignore his weaknesses and missteps. Now, however, he’s in the hot seat, the one position in the world that everyone watches like a hawk.
People with executive experience know to watch what they do and say because of the enormous scrutiny they are under and the import people attach to their least utterance. Obama’s simply never been in that kind of environment.
The chamber of commerce in chief.
“….nothing can penetrate his naivete”. Scary.
Obama seems to have difficulty distinguishing between the desired consequences and the likely consequences of his actions. But through most of his short, charmed career, there has been little difference between the two.
Would that we could elect the mojo and not the man.
For the good of the country and the world, I hope he is capable of learning and doing better. I oppose his domestic program, horse, foot and cannon. But I want an effective Commander in Chief, and he is going need to do things differently to rise to that challenge.
When I was in grade school, I learned that the Brain’s hemispheres process things differently.
Daley’s fried the left side seeing all the money gone.
We win the gun ban, his brain shorts itself, and the reign is over.
And not one shot fired.
“How come he does not instinctively avoid high risk / low return plays? Why does he have such a poor gut on this stuff?”
One of the facts about Obama I found to be insightful is that he has never held a job for more than three years in his entire life. How in the world can someone like that be successful, let alone reach the highest position in the entire world?
Shannon Love explained how a few comments back.
He’s always been a hot house flower making his way in the world by being “the first black person to do X”. As such, people have always focused almost solely on his positive qualities while making a concerted effort to ignore his weaknesses and missteps.
He’s been surrounded by people who worship him for nothing more difficult than his political orientation and various accidents of birth. He’s so cut off from the real world that he sees nothing wrong with appointing deeply flawed people to prominent, powerful positions. He made the decision, so how could anyone think of questioning his wisdom? They’d be called “racist” if they do!
This severe lack of grounding in reality makes me think of Michael Jackson, except that Mr. Jackson actually had talent.
No sane and rational resident of this city did want or would want these games here.
No sane and rational person would try to persuade the IOC that Chicago has something to offer as a tourist magnet that Rio de Janeiro doesn’t. WHAT IN THE HECKING HECKITY HECK WAS OBAMA THINKING?????
My daughter lives in Lincoln Park. She is absolutely apolitical. She, and her friends, hated the idea of the Olympics. They were terrified of the disruption and the potential for the 10% sales tax to go even higher.
“Any Bears fan could tell you that they should have sent Ditka to Copenhagen.”
It is all Ditka’s fault. He was offered the Senate nomination by the Republicans in 2004. If he had taken it, BO would still be a law prof.
Obama needs to go back to community organizing – whatever that means. The Community Organizer in Chief is putting our men and women in the military in peril. He is out of control with spending (contrast with Clinton, who is alleged to have eliminated the budget deficit). And, normally I don’t pick on wives, but come on – “gee, IOC, my dad had multiple sclerosis so Chicago should get the Olympics.” She might as well have said “gee, IOC, I’m wearing a yellow dress, so Chicago should get the Olympics.” For some reason, when it comes to Obama, I keep being reminded of Mad Magazine and Alfred E. Newman – “what, me worry?”