2016 Olympics
The city of Chicago lost its bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games. The President himself flew to Copenhagen to personally lobby the Olympic Committee to pick Chicago. Las Vegas odds makers had Chicago as a favorite to win the bid. And yet Chicago went down in ignoble defeat, knocked out in the first round. So, what can we learn from this debacle?
#1 – Copenhagen is not only a tobacco company, it is also apparently a city located somewhere outside the US.
#2 – The International Olympic Committee just isn’t as impressed as you’d think they would be by the sitting President of the United States paying them a personal visit.
#3 – There are multiple rounds in the process of selecting the winning city for the next Olympic Games.
#4 – Rio de Janero will be the first city in South America to host the Olympic Games. Ever. Maybe it was just their turn.
#5 – International Olympic Committee Olympic City Location Picker (IOCOCLP) must be a pretty awesome job. Can you imagine the amount of schmoozing, free food, and outright bribery these people get? Somebody tell me how I can get in on that deal.
Now, much has been made in the “news” about this upset loss for Chicago. Conservatives, at least the mean-spirited ones, are delighting in the personal indignity that it schluffed onto President Obama, much they way Liberals delighted in every indignity suffered by President Bush for 8 years. Forget the harm that it does to the country. Partisan politics rule the day.
But the bigger question is: was this really a loss for America? I mean, sure, it stinks for Chicago. Hosting the Olympic Games means buckets of money and jobs and international exposure for the host city. But does it matter to the rest of the US? Would any of that moolah trickle down to Florida? Would the prestige factor granted to Chicago have rubbed off on Pennsylvania?
As usual, the answer depends on which side of the political spectrum you’re on. And sadly, for most people the answer would be the opposite if a different guy had won the election. But I, being the last rational person left in America, kind of suspect that in the long run this doesn’t really matter to anyone outside Cook County, IL.
