On Thursday the triple O’threat of Oprah, Michelle Obama and the “One” Barack Obama jetted to Copenhagen, Denmark to try to charm the International Olympic Committee into giving the 2016 Games to the O’Trio’s home town of Chicago, Illinois. Oprah and Michelle wined and dined the committee members and later the President arrived to make his pitch. Michelle made a heartfelt speech in which she said, "Some of my best memories are sitting on my dad's lap, cheering on Olga and Nadia, Carl Lewis and others for their brilliance and perfection…” Of course when Carl Lewis participated in the Olympics the First Lady was in her 20’s, but we’ll let that pass. Maybe her dad's lap was bigger than we think. But most of her speech, like that of her husband’s, which followed hers, was about her. She said “I” this, "me" that and “my” that over and over, making the proposed Chicago Olympics not about the City of Chicago, or it’s people, but about the Obamas. Whether this obsessive self-centered diatribe was intentional or just a natural inclination of the Obamas I can’t say for certain, but it was ironically correct. Had the Windy City received the nod from the IOC it wouldn’t have been the taxpayers of Chicago that would have profited. No, from the beginning, the winners of Chicago 2016 would have been the Obamas and their cronies. The Obamas would have had a moral and political victory while Mayor Daley, Valerie Jarrett, their real estate developer friends and scores of others in the Chicago Democrat machine would have been the ones to make big money, while the taxpayers of Chicago got soaked for hundreds of millions of dollars.
Historically, most cities that host the Olympic games lose money. Sydney, Australia and Atlanta, Georgia are just two recent cities that lost millions all for the “prestige” of hosting the vaunted international competitions. Calgary, Canada where the 2010 Winter Games are to be held, is already deep in the financial hole and has used up 98% of it’s reserve fund with months yet to go before the games begin.
Chicago’s Mayor Richard M. Daley originally said that taxpayers wouldn’t have to foot the bill for the Games. Then he amended that a bit and said that Chicago’s taxpayers wouldn’t have to pay for them. That was an interesting change in phrasing since, according to reporting by Michelle Malkin, Valerie Jarrett (also known as Obama’s other brain) who was the unofficial White House Olympic Czar, had already arranged a meeting for herself and Chicago 2016 committee member Lori Healey with the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development to arrange HUD loans for the construction of the Olympic Village. So it seems that, in fact, the American Taxpayers (including those in Chicago) would have been stuck paying for at least a portion of the Chicago Olympics, had they come to pass. Also of note is that Valerie Jarrett may not have completely divested herself of her shares in Habitat Company, a development company that was bidding to build the Olympic Village.
In the end, the International Olympic Committee dropped Chicago in the first round of the final four, much to the shock and dismay of the O’Trio and their followers. In the aftermath of the defeat President Obama, his ego bruised, congratulated the winning city of Rio DeJaneiro and tried to get back to pushing his healthcare agenda on the nation. He and his fringe media allies, completely ignored the fact that he had spent millions of US Taxpayer dollars to fly to Copenhagen to lobby the IOC, something no American President had done before. He and they dismissed the fact that at a time when we’re fighting two wars, unemployment is nearing 10% nationally, the economy is in trouble and his healthcare plan is on life support, he dropped everything to shill for his adopted hometown and his political cronies. But others like US Senator Rowland Burris (D) IL, appointed by disgraced ex-Governor Rod Blagojevich to fill Obama’s vacated seat, rather than criticize Obama for wasting time and diminishing the prestige of the presidency, blamed former President George W. Bush for Chicago’s defeat. He indicated that Bush had hurt the image of the United States in the international community and that that ultimately was what caused the IOC to vote against Chicago.
I look at it a bit differently. I tend to agree with Rush Limbaugh, who remarked that perhaps it was President Obama’s “apology tour” that hurt Chicago’s chances. After all, Obama spent the past 9 months telling the world what a terrible and arrogant nation we are. Why would the IOC want to grant what they consider to be an honor on such an "unworthy" country? They probably decided that if they were going to let a city that's riddled with crime and corruption host the Games, they might as well give to Rio DeJaneiro, a city in South America where the Olympics have never been held. To quote the title of a mediocre Michael Caine movie, “Blame it on Rio”.
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